


love and pain (are one and the same)

by antisepticdork



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Cannibalism, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Men Crying, Nightmares, Non-Canonical Character Death, Occasional Fluffy Goodness, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 71,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antisepticdork/pseuds/antisepticdork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(While investigating mysterious crop deaths on Cygnia Minor, Jim encounters demons from his past, and has to deal with his growing feelings for his First Officer and the after-effects of the battle with Khan. A re-telling of Tarsus IV as explored in the Star Trek: TOS episode "The Conscience of the King". Set after the events of Star Trek: Into Darkness.)</p><p>Spock must’ve smelled it first, because he stopped walking and his “Captain” was more subdued than usual.</p><p>The breeze blew more strongly in their direction and Jim flinched subtly at the reek of decay—human decay, not the earthy, textural stench that was emanating from the dead crops. The two scents mixed together, in particular, made his stomach turn.</p><p>Bones made a face. “Well, shit.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> (Warnings for off-screen non-con, violence, and canon character death/undeath.)
> 
> Hey everyone! This is my first journey into the Star Trek fandom - the 2009 movie got me hooked and I'm currently on season 3 of TOS. Into Darkness was AMAZING, and after seeing it the second time I just had to write something. This started as a Jim Kirk character study and got away from me... really far away from me. Possibly into another galaxy. I'm thinking this will be about three parts total. I'll just leave this here and hope you enjoy it. Meep.
> 
> Title is from "One and the Same" by Audioslave.

James Tiberius Kirk had an interesting relationship with death—it seemed he couldn’t exist without it. That dependency started at birth, when he was surrounded by a massacre that haunted him before he could understand what starships or Romulans were. There was never a _Jimmy Kirk_ without a _Kelvin baby_ or a _my God, he has his father’s eyes_.

He didn’t know why his mother couldn’t look _at_ him, instead of looking _through_ him, as though he was an obstacle blocking her vision to somewhere—to _someone_ —else. Once when they were young, his brother Sam had asked him if he missed their father. Jim had considered the question as carefully as a four-year-old could before replying that he was pretty sure you couldn’t miss someone you had never known.

Sam had punched him in the mouth and run away, flat out across the fields behind the farmhouse. By dusk he came back and found Jimmy sitting on the back porch with a fat lip and a wet face. Sam never brought up George Kirk between them again.

That was the first time anybody hit Jim, and he decided he didn’t like it. Then Winona went and married Frank, and left her two boys with him while she buried herself in Starfleet work and went off planet. She was trying to escape her own demons, but she didn’t know—or maybe she didn’t care—that she had left her children with one.

Little Jimmy Kirk got plenty of practice at getting hit, and then he learned how to hit back.

 

~***~

 

Tarsus IV reminded Jim of Iowa (he was _Jim_ now, not _Jimmy_ ) in a good way, with its rolling landscapes of hybridized grains, tiger stripes of gold and bronze basking in the warm sun.

He liked living with his aunt in the colony, liked playing with kids who hadn’t already formed impressions of him from their history lessons or their parents. Tommy Leighton and Kevin Riley were his friends because they wanted to be, not because they had parents urging them to be nice to _that poor Kirk boy_. He liked how his hair turned even blonder and how his skin was toasty from being outside all the time.

No Frank. No Mom. No Sam.

Jim felt freer on Tarsus IV than he had on Earth, even freer than when he had plunged Frank’s car into that ravine. It was… nice, for a while.

Then the plants started to die.

At first it wasn’t a big deal—they went a few weeks a little hungrier, and people complained, but were reassured that something would eradicate the invasive fungus. Then as the adults exhausted their attempts to save the grains, a group-wide panic set in. People began hoarding food, mistrusting their neighbors, fighting in the street. Something had to be done, or the colonists were going to destroy one another and any resources they had left.

Governor Kodos was a rational presence in a time of crisis. He smiled and waved and talked a good game, and managed to momentarily alleviate the madness. He was likable and listened as the population voiced their concerns. He herded the colonists back together after they tried to rip one another apart, and they became a calm group of sheep.

But little did they know that Kodos was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and he was leading them to slaughter.

 

~***~

 

Soon, anyone who got more than a paper cut on Tarsus IV perished because there were no medical supplies. Starvation became as common and rudimentary as a cold or the flu. As the colonists died, so did the planet—the grass turned a parched brown, the trees shriveled, and the wind howled unrestrained, kicking up dust storms.

The rations got smaller and smaller, and Jim was so weak that he could barely lift a shovel to dig the graves. He’d buried his aunt when she died because nobody else was going to, and then grave digging had somehow become his job.

That was okay with Jim, in a morbid way—it gave him something to do besides think about how desperate he was for food. He could count each of his ribs, but he kept giving whatever food he could find to the younger kids and took the scraps for himself.

Jim and Tommy went out every day into the broiling heat, in hopes of finding something, _anything_ to eat. Kevin—the third in their unfortunate group of musketeers—could barely stand up or drink water, and was very nearsighted without his glasses. His spectacles had been broken weeks ago, so they left him with the other kids.

Sometimes Tommy and Jim could catch small lizards if they worked as a tag-team. The lizards tasted bitter but were okay if you cooked them until they were crispy, and there was the occasional mushroom to eat. They had to be careful with the ‘shrooms, though—people had died consuming the same fungus that was in the grains when it looked like something to eat.

One day, they wandered out beyond the colony, and were hit by a scent that made their mouths water and their stomachs ache—roasting meat.

The black smoke from the fire towered in the air like a column, making it easy to figure out where the smell was coming from. Tommy ran eagerly toward it, but Jim hung back, a skepticism cramping in his belly along with hunger. There was a rise up ahead, and the fire was just below it, sparks flaring in the bright sky.

Jim watched as Tommy reached the crest of the rocks, peered downward, and then let out a bloodcurdling wail. He scrambled back down the hill and ran right past Jim, screaming in horrified bleats.

There was shouting, and some adults rounded the bend the outcropping made, looking angry and startled. Jim knew he had to run, but his legs had turned to stone. These were people that Jim _knew_ , people he’d lived near and people his aunt had worked with. A man held another man’s burned and blackened severed hand. He had it raised to his lips like it was a cut of steak instead of _someone’s hand_. Next to him was a woman holding a cooked leg, as one would wield a baseball bat, bone sticking out of the top. There was another man with still-steaming entrails wound around his arms.

Jim ran like hell in the other direction, blind and retching emptily the whole way back to the colony.

 

~***~

 

It was that same night that Kodos gave the order that tilted the world on its axis, the order that transformed him from a leader into a murderer.

Watching four thousand people die at once was so horrific it seemed unreal to Jim’s numbed mind, mostly because he’d been watching people die for a while by then. What he couldn’t understand was why he didn’t die with them, why it wasn’t _his_ blood spraying everywhere, _his_ bones shattering.

“Those who are superior prevail,” Kodos said to the group of dirty, starving children, as anguished cries and the sticky sounds of death rang out around his encampment. “Those who are inferior must offer themselves to be stepped on, as they are the rungs of the ladder that leads to greatness. They must be sacrificed to achieve balance, be trampled in the name of the righteous.”

He locked eyes with Jim then, as if he could sense his thoughts of _wrong_ and _not true_. As if he knew of the rage and resentment boiling inside of Jim, how much he wanted to punch the man in one of those blank eyes, and knew of the fear that held him back.

Kodos the Executioner had the cold, hawkish features of a bird of prey, and Jim knew he would never forget his face.

 

~***~

 

No matter how hard he fought, Jim Kirk couldn’t save everyone. For a guy who didn’t believe in no-win scenarios, this was a taxing paradox. It was also reality, and the list of those that death had wrested from him only grew.

Losing Pike was like… Jim _imagined_ that it was like losing a father. Pike had believed in him when he hadn’t known that anybody could, and had unflinchingly defended him even when he screwed up. If anything the man deserved to go out in a blaze of glory aboard a starship, not shot to death in a conference room.

The crew… they were the best damn crew in the Fleet, no question. They put their lives in his hands every day, loyal until the end. Jim wore those deaths like burns and scratches under his skin, the kind that couldn’t be regenerated or healed instantaneously.

When the _Vengeance_ ’s weapons had been pointed at the _Enterprise_ , Jim’s apology to those on the bridge had been completely sincere. He hadn’t seen the writing on the wall, hadn’t been good enough, and they were going to die because of him. He had met everyone’s eyes and braced for annihilation that never came, because Scotty was the best damn _engineer_ in the Fleet and Jim had been stupid to ever let him walk away.

Admiral Marcus had died with his head pulverized between Khan’s hands, right in front of his daughter. Carol screamed because of the pain in her knee, but also because even though he was a psychopath on a warmongering binge, the man was still her father. Jim wished he could have spared her that.

Jim didn’t want to think about the civilians that were lost. He couldn’t, because it would cripple him, but they floated in his peripheral vision, never too far away.

 

~***~

 

And then there was Spock.

Spock, who had gone against every shred of logic he possessed and lied, bald-faced freakin’ _lied_ to Khan in order to get Jim and the others back. Spock, who hadn’t been able to _embellish_ on a goddamn incident report and got Jim shitcanned because of it—he told a real whopper in the face of a maniac and saved their lives.

Jim returned that favor in the only way he knew how—he saved his sinking ship, because if anybody deserved the _Enterprise_ , it was Spock. So did Uhura and Bones and Scotty and Chekov and Sulu, and she was going to _live_ , damn it, even if he didn’t.

Jim did something crazy, something reckless—best to play to your strengths—and kicked the warp core back together as radiation ate him from the inside out.

In the chamber, Jim really _was_ scared. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but it came out anyway. Death had taken so many others away, and now it was here for him, in a way he hadn’t experienced on the drill with Sulu or even on the _Vengeance_ with Khan. He could feel his body failing, had to focus on the present as his memories flew by like an old-fashioned flipbook.

When Spock started to cry, when the Vulcan’s unrestrained emotions bubbled to the surface, Jim fought the urge to look away. Watching his first officer break was something he felt like he shouldn’t witness. The way his face contorted, the green blood that rushed up under his cheeks—it was foreign to Jim, and absently he wondered when he’d done something to garner this kind of reaction. Each of Spock’s tears was a whiplash against Jim’s skin, the humming of the damaged warp core an underlining as they both fell apart.

Even as he faded, with his blood boiling and his lungs seizing, Jim took that word that Spock uttered— _friend_ —and hung onto it.

He used the last of his strength to bring his hand up to match Spock’s, watched the surprise and the devastation flicker on his features, and then Jim Kirk died.

 

~***~

 

Captain James T. Kirk played soccer with a bunch of kids on Cygnia Minor and felt like himself for the first time in several months.

He hadn’t lied to McCoy when he’d asked if he felt different—okay, Bones might’ve said _any homicidal urges_ instead of _different_ , but even as a Starfleet officer Jim had never been big on particulars. He had Khan’s synthesized blood flowing through his veins, latched on to his cells, but he was still himself in the ways that mattered.

And according to Bones, if it hadn’t been for Khan’s blood, a tribble, and Spock, Jim would’ve remained another corpse in a body bag on his table.

Bones had gotten even drunker the night he relayed that, eyes gone distant and glassy as he fell silent. Jim had decided not to mention that they’d consumed the same amount of whiskey and he was barely buzzed—he was more worried about his CMO’s mental health, but it did bother him.

Jim wasn’t winded on the soccer field—another thing that made the back of his neck prickle—but he stooped with his hands on his knees and pretended to be, because the kids clearly were. None of them were older than fourteen, yet they looked haggard and too skinny, a knowledge to their eyes and a cynicism around their mouths. Not starving, but they would be within a week if something wasn’t done to save the crops of Cygnia Minor. The planet provided all the grains in the area, and at the moment it wasn’t able to feed its own people, let alone those on other worlds. The _Enterprise_ had brought along emergency supplies and provisions, but it was hardly a permanent solution.

Jim felt a presence at his shoulder. “Captain.”

He straightened up and allowed himself a smile. “Mister Spock.” Jim wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at his first officer, who was watching the children with reserved dark eyes that snapped to him as soon as he spoke. “Any luck on identifying the cause of the blight?”

“Negative. I have beamed several samples back to the _Enterprise_ for further testing, but so far there is no conclusive data. Mister Sulu is puzzled as well—he has never seen anything of this nature during his environmental studies. We have discerned that it is a fungus, which somehow drives all the oxygenated cells out of everything it touches. Doctors Marcus and McCoy are speaking with the adult colonists to ascertain when the blight began and what went awry. It is not evident that anything produced naturally by the planet could have caused this.” Spock paused, tilting his head slightly. “Permission to speak freely, Captain?”

“Of course.”

“Do not misunderstand—I am in no way questioning your judgment, but I am interested to know why it is not _you_ talking with the colonists.”

Jim did his best to conceal his amusement. “But I am, Mister Spock.” They were walking toward where the children had sat or sprawled on the yellowing grass. “Just not the ones you were expecting. Kids tend to notice things that adults don’t. A couple of them pinpointed the date when the crops started to fail—they spend more time outside than the horticulturists do.”

One of Spock’s eyebrows arched. “Interesting.”

Jim feigned offence. “Only _interesting_? What, not _fascinating_?” He huffed out a laugh. “It was about three weeks ago, by the way.”

One of the girls saw them coming and picked up the soccer ball, drop-kicking it to Jim with a grin on her face. He caught the black-and-white sphere with ease and tossed it to Spock, who took the ball out of reflex more than anything else.

“Hey guys.” Jim sat down on the ground and was pleased when Spock followed his lead. He had a half-baked theory, and figured this was as good a time as any to check it out. “Remember when I was asking about the plants earlier? Were there any visitors here around then?” He held up a hand to ward off the immediate responses. “I know you see a lot of scientists and stuff, but was there anybody who seemed out of place?”

One of the boys nudged an older girl, who had been quieter than the rest of the group since the arrival of the _Enterprise_. She had mousy hair and big brown eyes, and seemed shy. “Beth, tell him!”

Beth glared at the boy and bit the inside of her lip.

Jim leaned forward, ducked his head so he could make eye contact with her. “Beth? Did you see something?”

Spock cleared his throat and added, “Any detail could be helpful, no matter how small.”

Jim shot him an approving glance.

“Before the wheat n’ the corn started dying, there was a guy who came here with one of those tourist groups,” Beth said, idly toying with the bracelet on her wrist. “He was dressed normal, but when he was gettin’ off the shuttle his bag opened, and I saw…” She reached out and plucked at Jim’s shoulder. “He had a shirt like this, only red. I wasn’t supposed to see, I don’t think, ‘cause he left in a hurry after.”

Jim and Spock traded a look, and then the captain addressed the rest of the kids: “Did any of you see the man Beth’s talking about?”

A boy covered in freckles poked Beth’s arm. “Was he tall and kinda bald? I think he stayed after the shuttle left. M’pretty sure he wore glasses, too.”

“Yeah!” Beth had brightened considerably. “That was weird, about the glasses—most people don’t have those anymore, right?”

Jim didn’t speak, because there was something stirring at the back of his mind, a speck of a memory. The glasses and the red shirt—if he had been able to sleep since he woke from his coma, he probably could’ve put a coherent thought together. The nightmares, though… they were brutal in a way they hadn’t been since Tarsus, and it was a problem even though he thought he’d convinced Bones otherwise.

“True. There is a laser procedure that can correct most optical deficiencies, and lenses for those who do not desire surgery.” Spock was tossing the soccer ball back and forth gently with one of the younger girls. He wasn’t smiling, but there was warmth in his eyes that hadn’t been present earlier; Jim found himself oddly jealous of that little girl for a moment. “Do any of you know where the man went after the shuttle departed?”

The freckled boy—whose name, Jim remembered with a wry smile, was _Jimmy_ —stood up and pointed in the direction of one of the unpaved maintenance roads. “He headed off that way, but there isn’t anythin’ out there but the gully.”

A small blue-haired girl murmured quietly, “Saw some birds out there yesterday, flyin’ in circles.”

Jim got to his feet. “Thanks, you guys. I’ll be back later, okay?” He ruffled the girl’s cyan hair and headed for the path that Jimmy had indicated, Spock following close behind. Despite a grim situation having just gotten grimmer, Jim couldn’t hold in a chuckle. “You like kids.”

“Captain?” Ah, it turned out Spock _did_ have an _I-do-not-know-what-you’re-talking-about-but-I-really-do_ voice. “That interaction was not indicative of—”

“Don’t even bother—I know what I saw, and I promise I won’t tell Bones.” Jim gave that some further thought and shrugged. “Well, maybe.” He cupped one hand around his mouth and called for Bones, making a _come-over-this-way_ gesture when he caught the always-irritated doctor’s attention.

“Tell me you found somethin’ more useful than what I’ve got,” Leonard McCoy said, traipsing over and pinching the bridge of his nose. “For a bunch of geniuses, these people are idiots. They barely look out their windows, let alone let their feet touch dirt—it’s all done with machines and computers.”

“Efficient, certainly, but highly problematic in this case,” Spock commented, seeming to know exactly what button to push to get Bones going.

The doctor snorted. “Efficient? More like robotic. Hell, pretty soon they’ll have one doing _your_ job… oh, wait—”

“Gentlemen, please,” Jim interrupted, forcing professionalism even though he wouldn’t have minded listening to a verbal tussle between his two friends. “To answer your question, Bones, I don’t know what we have yet, but it probably involves a body.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Should’ve worn my other boots.”

 

~***~

 

On the way to the gully, Jim comm’d the _Enterprise_ and asked Lieutenant Uhura to check with Starfleet and see if any representatives were sent along with a Cygnia Minor tour group during the time indicated by the witnesses. She told him that Starfleet had no knowledge of any commissioned officers taking part in deployment or shore leave to the planet.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen, Captain,” Uhura added when he was silent for a beat too long. “Starfleet recordkeeping hasn’t been the same since…” She didn’t finish the thought, but she didn’t have to.

_Marcus. Khan._

Jim cleared his throat and had a thought, one that was leaving his lips before it was fully formed. “Check and see if there’s any recently _de_ commissioned officers on shuttle manifests to Cygnia Minor or nearby planets and get back to me. Kirk out.” He put away his communicator and huffed in a manner akin to a five-year-old when he heard the whirr of Bones’ tricorder next to his ear. “Could you let up with that? I’m fine.”

“You did your best impression of a human popsicle and then slept for thirteen days! Forgive me if I don’t believe the first reading I get!”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and that was _eight months ago_! I swear I’m not gonna go on a bender and start crushing heads with my hands.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about and you know it! Jim, if you hadn’t been so goddamn annoying, I would’ve kept you in that hospital for—”

Spock must’ve smelled it first, because he stopped walking and his “Captain” was more subdued than usual.

The breeze blew more strongly in their direction and Jim flinched subtly at the reek of decay— _human_ decay, not the earthy, textural stench that was emanating from the dead crops. The two scents mixed together, in particular, made his stomach turn.

Bones made a face. “Well, shit.”

Jim been expecting this, but that didn’t make it any better, and it took effort to keep his feet moving forward, to look down when the toes of his boots touched the drop-off of the gully. The body was in a terrible state and what was left of it was tangled in some roots not far below where they stood; an arm had been dragged a distance away by an animal and then abandoned. Off to the right, the lenses of a pair of thick, black-framed glasses gleamed in the sunlight.

Jim’s comm beeped, and he fumbled for it while he gestured for Bones to check out the remains. “Kirk here.”

Bones responded with a raised middle finger, but clambered down all the same, swearing under his breath. Jim resisted the very, very strong urge to stick his tongue out at him. Spock watched the exchange without so much as a batted eyelash.

“Uhura, sir.” Nyota (Jim wasn’t allowed to call her that out loud, but that was how he thought of her) sounded vaguely amused. “You were right.”

He ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “Right about what?”

“Your idea about searching for a recently decommissioned officer on the shuttle manifests—you were right. There was one discharged Starfleet member aboard a shuttle that reached Cygnia Minor in the time frame you provided—a Lieutenant Kevin Riley.”

Jim couldn’t breathe. His vision faded out at the edges and he nearly dropped his communicator. He recovered, but for a moment he was disconnected, lost as his eyes wandered back down to the broken glasses beside an equally broken body. There could be another explanation, sure, but the chances were much better that his bespectacled, intelligent, good-natured friend Kevin Riley was _dead_. They hadn’t seen one another since they were at the Academy, which seemed like it was so long ago now.

Jim had a hard time talking around the sudden tightness in his throat. “Uhura, why was he discharged from Starfleet?”

“Misconduct after his application to transfer to the Science Department of the _USS Derringer_ was denied,” Nyota said. “He assaulted his CO and the guards that attempted to take him into custody, and received a dishonorable discharge. I can send you his complete file if you’d like, Captain.”

Jim could barely believe what Uhura was telling him. Kevin had never hurt a lizard— _eaten_ plenty of them, yes, but not killed. Five years ago Jim had worried that Kevin wouldn’t make it through the Academy because even necessary violence wasn’t in his nature.

Kevin liked to keep up with current topics, specifically agricultural colony news and speculation, for obvious reasons. Maybe he’d had applied for transfer and cited early reports of crop death on Cygnia Minor as a point of interest—and maybe he was rejected because his credentials weren’t substantial enough.

Jim knew that if Kevin had thought that what happened on Tarsus IV could’ve been the same thing that was happening on Cygnia Minor, he would’ve felt he _needed_ that transfer to prove his theory. That might’ve been enough motivation to provoke a violent response.

It also would’ve given Kevin a reason to board a shuttle after his discharge to check out the colony. And what if the same thing _was_ happening on Cygnia Minor? What if Kevin had found some kind of evidence that proved his hypothesis, and what if somebody had killed him for it? But why, unless they were trying to cover something up? The best suspect in that instance would be Kodos, and he was supposed to be dead.

_But what if he’s not? Kevin’s one of the only ones who would know._

Jim wavered on his feet. Spock caught his arm, and the touch was like a burn, a grounding sensation that rocketed right up to his brain. It was brief, reassuring contact but it felt like much more, and Jim had to wonder if that went both ways.

He shook his head to clear it and tuned back in to the conversation. “Thank you, Lieutenant—forward those records to Mister Spock and Doctor McCoy as well. Kirk out.”

“Captain,” Spock began, looking concerned, “are you—”

“Hey, Jim!” Bones called, rather loudly for the short distance between them and probably only to piss Spock off. “You’ll never believe this!”

“What is it?”

“It’s hard to tell from all of this—” the doctor gestured at the gore lining the ground beneath his feet “—but this guy didn’t die from the fall or another injury—no broken neck, fractured skull, what have you. Not a scratch on him that isn’t postmortem, but his muscles look like grape jelly and his organs are applesauce.”

“Ew.” Jim rolled his hand in a _go on_ gesture. “Point, Bones?”

“I’d like to get the science lab to confirm, but I’m fairly certain he was poisoned, and here’s the real kick in the ass—it looks like the same stuff that’s killing the crops.”

Jim felt Spock’s gaze attempting to burn holes into the side of his head— _shit, I must be projecting angst like a holo billboard_. “Call for a recovery team, Bones—get a positive ID and as much of him up to the _Enterprise_ as you can.”

He met Spock’s eyes (when had that become such a hard thing to do?) and added, “The doc is probably right about the poison, but your test results on the crops are going to come back inconclusive, so that won’t get us anywhere. If you search the ship’s computer you’ll find a similar case of blight on another colony planet. Look up everything you can get on Tarsus IV and get back to me with an opinion—I want to know if we’re facing the same thing.” He forced a brittle smile and pulled out his communicator. “I’m not feeling so well after all—you’re in command down here, Mr. Spock.” Into the comm, he said, “Beam me up, Scotty.”

Jim dematerialized and never felt Spock’s hand touch his shoulder.

 

~***~

 

Leonard looked up from his tricorder readings in time to watch Jim vaporize into golden particles. He scowled up at Spock, who lowered his reaching hand after a brief delay. “You just let him beam up? What the hell, man!”

Spock was staring at the space where Jim had been, and it seemed to take him a moment to come back to himself. “And what was I supposed to do to stop him, Doctor? Make a rude hand gesture?”

“Hey, I’m the one in the pit with the decaying, animal-ravaged corpse—smart-mouth to somebody else, _Commander_.” He pulled out his comm and called the _Enterprise_. “Sickbay… yeah, it’s McCoy. Who’s up there in that floating death trap?”

“That would be me, unfortunately,” Doctor M’Benga said wryly. “If you’re calling about the recovery team, they should be beaming down shortly—Captain Kirk already stopped by and informed us that they would be needed.”

“Wait… Jim was _there_? And you let him _leave_?”

M’Benga became worried. “Is there something wrong with him?”

“Get somebody to track him down, he just beamed up to the ship ‘cause he said he was feeling ill—truth is I don’t think he’s slept in a month.”

“That’s—”

Leonard snorted. “Impossible, I know. But then again, _possible_ doesn’t seem real relevant nowadays.” _Damn it, kid—always with the dramatics._ He tried to keep his frustration and worry at a simmer instead of a boil. “When you find him, give him an extra-sharp sedative hypo from me. McCoy out.” He peered at Spock’s face—speaking of impossible, the Vulcan looked almost _forlorn_ —and decided to cut him some slack. “Interesting that he told you to look up Tarsus IV.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“It’s not something Jim wants everybody knowing about—he only told me because his nightmares were givin’ me a permanent migraine back at the Academy,” Leonard said, and then hesitated. “Look, just… go easy on him, okay? That captain of ours doesn’t have many sore spots, but that’s one of ‘em. With the whole super villain serum thing, I’d rather you didn’t get him too upset—I don’t know what’ll happen if you do.”

“I believe I do.” Spock turned his pensive stare back to the void where Jim should’ve been, and Leonard was reminded of how he had looked every day when Jim was in the coma, sitting next to that hospital bed, still as a statue. “And it has already occurred.”

 

~***~

           

Once the landing party was beamed back aboard and his shift on the bridge in the absence of Captain Kirk was over, Spock retired to his quarters to read the information he had pulled from the _Enterprise_ ’s computer regarding Tarsus IV. He could’ve done so from the bridge but chose discretion for the captain’s sake.

Spock had heard of Tarsus IV before, during horticultural lectures at the Academy. The planet had been mentioned in passing and was only brought up because the fungus that caused the blight on the crops there was an anomaly that had never been fully comprehended. There was never any talk of what happened _after_ the plants withered away.

Tarsus IV had been thriving at one interval and began a steep descent into extinction at the next. The Tarsus system was a great distance from the nearest Starbase, and by the time those on the planet exhausted their attempts to revive the crops, their emergency supplies were too low to sustain them until help was predicted to arrive.

Before the blight began, the population of the Tarsus IV colony was eight thousand people, and at least two hundred of those died of starvation or injuries sustained in confrontation over the remaining rations. Governor Kodos intervened when all hope appeared lost, and divided the population into two groups—those he saw fit to live, and those who needed to die in order for the first group to survive.

Approximately four thousand people were slaughtered, including ailing children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Kodos ruled as a dictator over the remaining thirty-eight hundred and deemed them superior, even as their numbers began to dwindle due to overwork, starvation, and riots.

When Starfleet aid finally arrived on Tarsus IV, the population had been reduced to nine people. Every building in the colony had been burned to the ground or destroyed, and the former fields of crops were pools of blackened ooze that held dozens of bodies in their depths.

The nine witnesses insisted that Kodos was not among their small group—they had all seen his face and would recognize him. There were many bodies too badly damaged to identify, and Kodos was thought to be one of the deceased.

Spock scrolled down to the last segment of the article, where the names of the survivors of the genocide were listed. Kevin Riley’s name was among them… as was the captain’s. He did not know why this surprised him—in fact, he should’ve expected it, via McCoy’s cryptic information and the captain’s earlier discomfort, but for some reason he had not.

Spock stilled for a moment, staring at the _James Tiberius Kirk_ printed clearly on the screen of his data slate, and a peculiar sensation—a _chill_ , it was called—rippled down his back. There was no logical reason for the sight of the captain’s name to cause him to react in that manner, but it was troubling nonetheless. Still, to think that Jim—who was bright, jovial, and compassionate to a fault—had lived through such an ordeal was astounding.

Immediately, Spock researched the other names on the list and what he discovered troubled him further—six of the nine witnesses were deceased, either by old age or what appeared to be other natural causes.

That meant that if the remains currently in Sickbay were indeed those of ex-Lieutenant Kevin Riley, there were only two living witnesses to Kodos’ actions on Tarsus IV: Doctor Thomas Leighton, and Captain James T. Kirk.

And speaking of the captain, there were some disturbing noises emanating from his room.

 

~***~

 

Jim checked in with the bridge after a (thankfully) quick visit to Sickbay upon his abrupt return to the _Enterprise_. Then he spent a fun half-hour dodging medical personnel that Bones had undoubtedly sent after his ass once he figured out why he’d beamed back up to the ship.

His favorite cranky doctor probably would’ve come himself, but the recovery of what was presumed to be Kevin Riley’s body had to be supervised, and Jim had left a lot on Spock’s metaphorical plate with nearly no explanation. He felt bad about that, but he needed a chance to think, a chance to breathe without his skin crawling with a sense of déjà vu.

Jim sparred with a couple of eager ensigns to blow off some steam—they both reminded him of Chekov with their friendly Labradorian nature—until they had to go on-duty for Beta shift, and then he snuck off to his quarters.

He had a close call when Sulu almost spotted him, but managed to get the door shut behind him without getting tattled on to Bones. It was kind of ridiculous to be playing chicken like this—he was the _captain_ of a _starship_ , for Christ’s sake—but Jim didn’t see an alternative that didn’t include more poking and prodding and worrying on Bones’ part. Now that he had let the cat out of the bag with Spock and Tarsus IV—God, what was with the animal metaphors—Jim expected even more scrutiny.

And to use a certain first officer’s favorite word, _logically_ Jim couldn’t blame Bones for being worried that he might decide to start ripping the wings off flies, but that didn’t make him feel any better about it.

Jim pulled off his sweat-drenched undershirt and tossed it aside, flopping down on his bed. He was tired, _really_ tired, _couldn’t-remember-the-last-time-he-slept_ tired… but falling asleep only meant he’d dream about Khan… or Marcus… or about…

 

~***~

 

_—being so hungry that he would do anything to get a morsel to eat. Shoveling all day was hard work and he barely got enough water to drink, let alone food to quiet his grumbling belly. But Kodos had called him to his quarters, and nowadays on Tarsus IV you didn’t ask why, you just went or you got your head chopped off._

_And Jim couldn’t believe his luck—a candy bar, chocolate with nuts, right there on the table in front of him, so close he could smell it and his mouth watered at the thought of its salty-sweet taste. He knew it was too good to be true, knew there had to be a catch, but his stomach lurched painfully and he found he didn’t care, as long as—_

_“Now, now,” the governor had admonished as he rose from his chair, walking slowly along the length of the table towards where Jim was standing. “Surely, Mister Kirk, you are aware that even amongst superior races, barter is necessary to get what one desires?”_

_The hairs on Jim’s arms rose, and trepidation settled in his bony chest. “What do you want?”_

_Instead of watch Kodos grin lecherously as he shoved him to his knees, Jim reeled back as the governor’s face twisted and morphed into Khan’s. The voice, too, changed into Khan’s deeper, menacing tone. “I want to watch your ship go down with her captain.”_

_Then Jim felt it—the paralyzing, burning pain that came with radiation poisoning, like every nerve ending in his body was on fire, like his lungs were melting and his skin was prickling, blood vessels bursting, his spine sagging suddenly under his body’s weight._

_He heard the strain of the_ Enterprise _’s struggling engines, heard Scotty calling up to the bridge, saw Spock’s face in front of him, felt Spock touching him—no, that couldn’t be right, that—_

~***~

 

Strong hands gripped his shoulders, and Jim was still so engrossed in his nightmare that he assumed they belonged to someone who meant him harm. He did the first thing that came to mind—he head butted his attacker in the face, knocking them off his bed with a _crunch_ and a _thud_.

The blow dazed Jim, and it took him a moment to realize who was attempting to stand and cradling their face. “Computer, lights—wait, _Spock_?”

“Yes, Captain.” His first officer sounded a little congested—probably had something to do with his busted nose. “I must say that your frontal bone is quite dense. It… serves its purpose sufficiently.”

“I’m pretty sure its purpose isn’t rearranging your face.” Jim sat up and touched Spock’s elbow, guiding him to the edge of the mattress. “Here, sit.” He left the bed and ordered some ice cubes from his personal replicator, and improvised an ice pack using one of his dress socks. “It’s clean, promise.” He came back and held it gently to Spock’s nose, waited until the Vulcan took it from him before sitting back down and asking, “How’d you get in here, anyway?”

When they had been on the ship long enough to move into quarters, Spock had said that he didn’t want to take advantage of their mutual space and always used the door chime, so Jim was a little surprised to hear, “Our shared restroom, Cap—Jim.”

Jim’s smile at having Spock address him by name off-duty dissolved quickly—if Spock had come into his quarters unannounced, he had to have a good reason. He was also hyperaware of being half-naked and centimeters from a man he was most definitely attracted to. He had no idea what time it was, but blurted out, “Did I wake you? Sometimes I have pretty active dreams.”

Jim could’ve smacked himself for that last part—the innuendo was leaking out on its own horny accord.

“You were screaming,” was Spock’s response, and those three words looked as if they caused him pain to utter. “And not in any way that seemed pleasurable.”

Jim blinked. “Oh.” He swallowed, throat suddenly dry, and was it his imagination or did Spock’s eyes track the movement? _Holy crap, man, upstairs brain._ _Professionalism and all that shit._ “I’m glad you woke me up, then.” He noticed the green blood collecting near Spock’s upper lip and grabbed his shirt from earlier, using an edge to carefully dab at it. He didn’t get choked out, so Jim presumed personal space was no longer an issue between them. “I am sorry about this, though. Do you want me to call Bones?”

Spock’s Vulcan hearing gave him a few seconds of warning. “I do not believe that will be necessary. Dr. McCoy is—”

Bones used his medical override to get Jim’s door open and was ready to whip out the third degree. “Of course, when I expect you to be _anywhere_ else, you’re in your damn—” He paused at the sight before him and proceeded to sigh the sigh of the long suffering. “Do I want to know?”

Before Jim could think of a half-decent lie, Spock said, “I came here to give the captain my opinion on the similarities between Tarsus IV and Cygnia Minor, and there was a rather unfortunate accident.”

“I tripped,” Jim chipped in, after he managed to keep his jaw from hitting his knees. “Smacked him with my head.”

Bones squinted at them, then glanced down at the messy patchwork of laundry on the floor and relented, “You _are_ a klutz, Jim.” He came over and took a look at Spock’s nose. “Not broken—looks worse than it is. I’ve fixed enough of these for the captain, here, let’s see what we can do.” As he dug through his instruments he eyed Jim suspiciously. “So how are you feeling?”

Jim put on his most disarming grin, even though he knew it would have no effect on his best friend. “Super, thanks for asking.”

Bones wasn’t done: “That was a nice game of dodge ‘em that you played with M’Benga and the others earlier.”

Jim spread his arms as far as he could in the space between the wall and Spock. “I got some sleep eventually Bones—isn’t that what you wanted?”

The doctor scowled but let the matter drop.

Jim wasn’t under the delusion that he’d gotten away clean, so he changed the subject. “How goes the autopsy?”

“Quickly, considering the guy’s mostly liquid,” Bones said dryly. He saw the look on Jim’s face and winced. “Sorry, Jim, I keep forgetting you knew him. Think I met him once, back at the Academy—nice kid.” He held some kind of buzzing mechanism next to Spock’s nose and added, “The tissue’s decaying almost exactly like the grains on Cygnia Minor but at a much faster rate. Doctor Marcus found an injection site near his spine, which makes me think he was shot up with a concentrated amount of the fungus and then shoved into that gully.”

Jim blew out a breath and looked at Spock, who had been watching him while Bones was talking. “Is it the same fungus as the one that destroyed the crops on Tarsus?”

“As you predicted, the test results were inconclusive—there is nothing in our data banks that matches the fungus discovered on Cygnia Minor,” Spock replied. “This is not surprising, because there were no samples taken from the crops on Tarsus IV. The similarities between the two cases, however, are very clear. Is the visual appearance of the blight on Cygnia Minor similar to that on Tarsus IV?”

Jim nodded. “Yeah. The grains looked fine for the first week, which is why nobody called for help sooner, and then the second week they started to dry up and split. The third week—what they’re in now—they rotted. The ones down there aren’t far enough along to turn into goo, but it’s coming.” He scratched his head. “So if they _are_ the same thing, that could just be a coincidence… but Kevin’s murder changes that. That means Tarsus wasn’t a freak act of nature or an accident—it was intentional.” His hand curled into a fist where it came to rest on his leg. “And the only person who would’ve done something like that intentionally is Kodos.”

“Most likely in an attempt to create a situation in which to experiment with his eugenics theories,” Spock agreed, tone oddly cautious. The doctor was done repairing his nose, and he looked much better. “But what is the likelihood that someone other than Kodos would infect Cygnia Minor with the same fungus and kill Kevin Riley to protect that secret?”

Jim didn’t answer.

“Well it couldn’t have been Kodos,” Bones said, sounding uncertain as put away his medical kit and stared hard at Jim. “After all, he’s dead… right?”

Uhura’s voice echoed suddenly through the intercom system: “Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

 _Saved by the Lieutenant_ , Jim thought. It was a little strange that Uhura would be on duty now—when had she changed shifts? Nonetheless, he got up and crossed the room, holding down the button for the wall comm. “Kirk here—what is it?”

“I’m picking up a transmission from Planet Q, sir,” Nyota said. “The message is from a Doctor Thomas Leighton, and—” She paused, listening, and when she spoke again her tone was just this side of astonished. “He says he knows how to end the blight on Cygnia Minor, but he wants to talk to you.”

Jim had grabbed a shirt and gave it a quick sniff-test as soon as she mentioned Tommy’s name, and he managed to get his arms through it before he had to punch the button again. “Get him on visual, I’ll be right down.” He found a gold tunic, pulled it on, and headed for the door. He stopped mid-stride, looking back at Bones and Spock. He rocked on his heels and tried to calm his nerves. “You guys coming?”

Spock stood and straightened out his science blues before coming to stand at his side. “Of course, Captain.”

Bones joined them and clapped Jim on the shoulder. “What else would we do?”

 

~***~


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for some gore and language - that and taking liberties with the TOS canon.)
> 
> The positive response to this fic makes me all fuzzy inside! Thank you guys so much for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter! This one isn't as long but I hope it lives up to the (very high) standards you've set for me! :P I'm going to try to keep updating every weekend - we're looking at four parts minimum, so buckle up!

Jim remembered with awful clarity the night on Tarsus IV that Tommy Leighton got half his face burned off.

It was only a few days after Kodos ordered the execution of the four thousand “inferior” members of the population. The ones that weren’t in pieces were stacked like cordwood on big pallets, waiting for their graves to be dug. A couple of Kodos’ men surrounded the bloating bodies despite the stench—scavengers were a constant threat, and the governor’s rule couldn’t be usurped by some enterprising fellow passing out extra meat.

Jim and Tommy were among those who had volunteered to bury the dead and were promised rations from Kodos’ personal stores for their work. There were thirty volunteers in total deepening an existing gully for use as a mass grave. Work like that during the day was impossible, due to the heat of the sun and the windstorms that blew blinding dust around, so they had to wait to start until darkness fell.

The generators had run out of fuel ages ago, so the only way to see at night was by firelight. Kodos’ men randomly selected a home whose residents had been executed and threw a torch on it. In minutes, the makeshift bonfire raged into the sky, crackling and casting eerie shadows on the diggers.

Jim put his shovel in the ground and threw out dirt until he was dizzy and his arms felt like they were going to fall off. Whenever the breeze blew the smoke in the direction of the gully he would wind up choking on the acrid fumes. He and Tommy worked uneasily, afraid every second that Kodos’ lapdogs would find the cave where they’d stashed Kevin Riley and the sick kids they’d saved from slaughter.

The oldest person in the group of diggers was a beanpole eighteen-year-old with raging acne named Fred. He surveyed their work and called up to the guards, “We’ve got it as deep as it’s gonna get—we’re ready for ‘em!”

No response. No sounds at all save for the snapping and popping of the fire and the rumbling of somebody’s stomach.

An agitated murmur broke out in the group, and Jim was having that cramping feeling again, the one that had nothing to do with hunger.

A rhythmic squeaking sound came from above them, getting closer with each passing second. It took Jim a moment more to realize what it was, and when he did he frantically shoved Tommy toward the edge of the gully. “Everybody get out, they’re gonna—”

The _squeak-squeak_ was the wheels on one of the makeshift dollies under the pallets the dead were resting on. The grotesque sight came into view, just as Kodos’ men tipped the bodies over the lip of the gully, fully intending to bury the diggers alive with the corpses. A wave of dirt came down with the rot, and Jim listened as people choked to death on it because their mouths were open in terrified screams.

Tommy clambered up with his shovel and then hauled Jim out, and they both stuck around to pull the others out from under the avalanche. Some of the survivors had also managed to hang onto their shovels and pickaxes. They were filthy and scared and exhausted, but also _really_ pissed off—there was no doubt this was another one of the governor’s superiority tests.

There were six guards armed with phasers that were no doubt close to the end of their charge, and twenty-seven angry, starving workers. One of Kodos’ men had the gall to grin and say, “Congratulations, maggots, you passed—”

Tommy swung his shovel so fast that Jim barely saw it travel through the air. The guard’s head caved in under the spade and the scene dissolved into chaos as flames licked the sky. A red phaser beam killed someone but then the attacker was hit in the chest with a pickaxe. Two of the diggers were thrown back into the pit and smothered at the same time as a guard was impaled on an old fencepost.

Jim dodged a phaser blast but got his legs swept out from under him and fell hard, spitting out dirt and blood. He moved to get up but a heavy boot fell on his back, the full weight of one of Kodos’ men behind it. Jim tried to throw him off, but to no avail. The dust settled, revealing that the entire group of rebels was stunned or dead. Three of the guards were down for the count, including the one that Tommy had killed.

_Tommy, where’s Tommy—_

Tommy was screaming.

It took a moment to locate him with all the smoke, and when Jim saw him he started screaming too. Two guards were holding him down on the ground, and one of them kicked a piece of red-hot metal over, and they were holding Tommy above it as he screamed and thrashed and fought and then they were pressing his face down on the metal—

 

~***~

 

“Captain. _Captain_.”

Jim blinked the haze out of his eyes, the stink of burning flesh stagnant in the back of his throat. He sat up, startled, and realized that he’d fallen asleep on the bridge of the _Enterprise_. He didn’t know for sure, but he was fairly certain that a starship captain wasn’t supposed to nap on duty. What was even more embarrassing was that Spock had to shake his shoulder to wake him up.

“Jesus,” Jim muttered, rubbing a hand over his face and clearing the last of the dream-which-was-really-a-memory out of his mind. He glanced around—noting that none of the crew appeared to have noticed his impromptu _siesta_ —and looked up at Spock. “How long was I out?”

“At least three minutes. I left my station to speak with you and found that you were sleeping.” Jim had expected annoyance and condescension in the combination of Spock’s voice and his eyes, but instead there was only quiet concern. His next words were a statement, not a question: “Doctor McCoy was correct—you have not slept since the incident with Khan.”

 _Damn, Bones knows—what does he have, nanny cams?_ Jim felt a migraine coming on, and reluctantly admitted, “Not for more than a few minutes at a time.”

“That is a physiological impossibility—”

Jim let out a snort. “In case you haven’t noticed, _Commander_ , I’m a walking example of an impossibility. I shouldn’t even be here.”

His eyes widened at the venom in his own tone, and he was just as surprised as his first officer. _Where the hell did that come from?_ The brief flash of _something_ (was that _pain_?) in Spock’s eyes was something Jim couldn’t mirror.

Spock’s grip on his shoulder tightened briefly and then the touch was gone. His tone was frosty when he said, “You’ll forgive me if I do not share your opinion on the matter, Captain.”

“Wait, Spock, I—”

“Approaching Planet Q,” Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu interjected, though if he was aware he was doing so he didn’t show it. He brought the _Enterprise_ out of warp and the planet loomed large on the view screen. “Standard orbit, sir?”

Jim hadn’t been surprised that Doctor Leighton wanted to speak with him in person—discovering the genetic code for a new synthetic grain was a major breakthrough, not something to be discussed over a comm link. Planet Q was a few hours away at warp in a neighboring galaxy, so Jim agreed to come and visit. He had left some personnel on the surface of Cygnia Minor led by Doctor Marcus, and the _Enterprise_ made the trip.

“Standard orbit, Helmsman,” Jim confirmed, hitting the intercom button on the arm of his chair. Whatever the weird thing was that had just passed between him and Spock, this wasn’t the time or place to deal with it. “Bridge to Engineering—Scotty, you ready to beam us down?”

“Aye, Captain.” Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott’s thick brogue came through loud and clear over the ship’s speakers. “Ready on your—hey, you get offa there!” There was some muffled scrabbling. “Sorry, sir. Ready on your signal.”

Jim had no doubt Keenser was meddling somewhere just to turn the engineer’s crank and didn’t bother hiding a smile. “We’ll be right down, Mister Scott—oh, and you have the conn.”

“Are you cra—I mean, aye sir! Scott out.” Before he signed off he could be heard muttering, “Lord knows _I’ve_ got it together.”

 _Probably more than me_ , Jim thought as he pushed himself out of his chair. “Mister Spock, Sulu, you’re coming with me—let’s pick up Bones and go see what Tommy has to say.”

 

~***~

 

“I _hate_ that!” Bones half-shouted after they materialized on the surface of Planet Q. He seemed grumpier than usual, but Jim couldn’t’ put his finger on why. “Always feels like I’ve got a hundred Andorian monk beetles crawlin’ under my skin—why am I here again?”

Planet Q was a Class M research hub at the beginning of an otherwise unmapped star system. The Federation didn’t get out to that neck of the woods very often, but the city Tommy lived in was modernized. Most of the citizens seemed to prefer walking to hovercars, and the weather was pleasant enough for it.

“The Chief Medical Officer must be present to verify that the synthetic grain is acceptable for humanoid consumption,” Spock answered as they crossed the street. They’d beamed down a short distance from the Leightons’ home in a nearby park. “As the _Enterprise_ ’s Science Officer, I must verify that the genetic engineering is sound and that there have been no violations of protocol in the creation of the grain. Mister Sulu is an experienced horticulturist and will be able to point out any potential flaws in the plant itself.”

Sulu almost tripped on the curb. “That’s very high praise coming from you, sir—thank you.”

Jim mouthed along to Spock’s next words, mimicking silently as he rang the door chime: “It was merely a statement of fact, Lieutenant.”

There was a pause. “Doctor?”

McCoy grunted. “Spock?”

“Did you bring your usual array of hyposprays?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Does that include a sedative?”

Bones eyeballed him. “Yes. Why?”

“I believe the captain could use one.”

Bones snorted out a laugh, Jim shot Spock a dirty look, and Sulu looked as though he suddenly wished he could be anywhere else other than where he was.

The door slid open, revealing a petite brunette woman who was in the middle of combing her hair out of her green eyes with her fingers. She wore a dirt-streaked jumpsuit and had just removed some gloves—clearly she’d been working outside. Her face lit up. “Jim!”

Jim grinned and hugged her, professionalism be damned. “Martha, it’s good to see you.” He kept a hand on her tiny shoulder and ran through the introductions: “Martha Leighton, this is Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu and my first officer, Spock. I’m sure you remember Bones.”

Martha feigned a curtsy, batting her eyes in McCoy’s direction. “How could I forget the charming and severely inebriated Southern gentleman from my wedding?” She giggled when Bones made a big show of kissing her hand and waved them forward. “It’s nice to meet you both—please, come in.”

Tommy was in the living room of the airy, angle-laden house. He turned to greet them, the right half of his face alive with emotion and the left a plasticized shell that mimicked the dips and grooves of his skull. “Jim Kirk, you son of a bitch—how are you?”

His tone was jovial, but right away Jim sensed there was something… _off_ about his old friend. Tommy was too stiff-limbed, too composed—subtle cues that Jim hadn’t picked up on during the comm transmission. He was picking his words before he uttered them, too, all signs that something was wrong. Jim glanced at Bones and could tell that he’d noticed it too.

He wasn’t sure what _it_ was because he was so mired in his own crap, so he smiled and told a big fat fucking lie. “Never better, Tommy.” They shook hands and Tommy held on a tad too long; Jim pretended not to notice. “It’s good to see you.”

“And it is most fortuitous under our current circumstances,” Spock added, as they all sat down.

Tommy nodded from his recliner as Martha perched on its arm. “Indeed, Mister Spock. When I heard about the situation on Cygnia Minor I dove back into some research I hadn’t touched in years—it was just too similar to Tarsus IV, and I didn’t want to leave a stone unturned and regret it later.”

“He’s been working day and night for a month now.” Martha shook her head in fond exasperation. “He’s even been in touch with one of your mutual friends.”

Jim was careful to keep his expression from changing as trepidation crept into his mind. “Kevin Riley?”

“Yes, I spoke with Kevin a couple of weeks ago,” Tommy replied, showing no indication of knowing that the man they were talking about was deceased. “He said he would be traveling out this way and promised to drop by—he stopped off at Cygnia Minor and took a look around, sent me some preliminary data while he was there. Kevin was always interested in crop colonies, not that that’s surprising—I was shocked to hear he left Starfleet.”

So Kevin had told Tommy that he _left_ Starfleet, not that he got shitcanned—Jim found that interesting. Since Tommy wasn’t a member of Starfleet himself, he evidently hadn’t bothered checking the database, but he had no reason to think Kevin would lie to him.

“But he said wanted to make up for missing the wedding,” Tommy continued. “Jim, he told me that you blew some big test the morning after because you came—ah, what was it, had a weird name—”

“The _Kobayashi Maru_ ,” Bones supplied helpfully, sounding far too chipper as he did so. “And by _blew_ , Riley must’ve meant _totally bombed_.”

Jim attempted to glare daggers at him, but it was hard to do with Spock in between them and _crap_ , the _Kobayashi Maru_ was Spock’s screwed up cheat-y test— _goddamn_ this was embarrassing.

“Think they’ve got the picture, Bones,” he said, and although his face was burning, at least they’d all silently agreed not to tell Martha and Tommy about Kevin’s death.

Sulu cleared his throat. “Did Lieutenant Riley’s data aid you in developing the new synthetic grain?”

Doctor Leighton laughed again. “It did—I was able to distinguish what I definitely _didn’t_ want to encode into the grain.” He looked up at Martha, touching her arm. “Honey, why don’t you show the officers the prototype we have growing in the greenhouse?” He winked at Jim, a gesture that looked odd with only one eye—yet another thing that was out of character. “I’d like to have a word with the captain.”

Jim caught Spock’s questioning gaze and nodded. “Go ahead, guys. We’re good.”

Martha led Bones, Spock, and Sulu through a sliding door off the kitchen into the yard, leaving Jim and Tommy alone.

The doctor reached for a decanter on a side table. “Drink?”

“Pass.” Since Jim had figured out drinking didn’t have the effect on him that it used to, liquor had lost some of its charm. He’d learned that by downing a bottle and a half of whiskey and finding out that all that happened was he felt like he had a fever for a night— _let’s add that the list of_ _Things I Haven’t Told Bones_. Now he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lowering his voice. “Tommy, what the hell is going on?”

Tommy chuckled as he sipped some fragrant Orion alcohol. “Well, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory—”

“Bullshit.” Jim’s piercing stare didn’t waver. “I’m not kidding. What’s going on?”

Tommy sighed, putting down his glass and leaning forward as well. He met Jim’s blue-eyed gaze, and now he looked ashamed but determined. “I’ll be honest with you, Jim—”

“That would be a start.”

Tommy tapped his fingers against his knee restlessly. “There is no new synthetic grain—I didn’t have a breakthrough, I needed to get your attention.”

“You took a big risk, Tommy—my first officer is going to know you lied as soon as he looks at what you’ve got growing out there.” Jim felt like he’d been sucker punched, even though he’d braced for the hit. “You’re damn lucky I told Starfleet Command we were checking out a lead and not that I had a solution to the problem, or I’d be really pissed.”

“I _do_ have some credible data which could be useful to you regarding the makeup of the fungus—I think I’m close to figuring out what makes it tick. I _don’t_ have a fully developed synthesized grain and you’re right, your Vulcan friend will know that momentarily—”

Jim stood, attempting to keep the anger he felt at bay. “Then we’re done here.” He headed for the door.

“Kevin Riley had reason to believe that Kodos the Executioner is alive, and so do I!”

 _That_ stopped Jim in his tracks, hands clenching into fists. It felt like a spider skittered up his spine— _thinking_ something crazy was one thing, but hearing it out loud from someone else was different. He didn’t turn around, couldn’t let Tommy see his face. “Kodos is dead. You know that.”

“But that’s the thing! Nobody _knows_ , not for sure—the bodies Starfleet found were so disfigured they couldn’t get positive IDs on half of them!” Tommy came around in front of him and put his hands on his shoulders. “And what happened on Tarsus correlates perfectly with what’s happening on Cygnia Minor, and if you’ve seen it you know how close those grain fields are to melting into tar, how close those children are to dying. The idea’s always been passed around that Kodos was the one who engineered the fungus that destroyed the crops on Tarsus IV—what if he _is_ alive, and he’s doing it again? You’d be obligated to stop him, prevent another genocide! Please, Jim, just hear me out, for old time’s sake? Stay for dinner, I’ll share my data, and then there’s something I want you and your men to see.”

Jim considered it, factoring in what they knew and what his gut was telling him. After everything that had happened, even though he couldn’t sleep or eat and he was pretty sure he’d fallen and hit the ground for Spock, he still trusted his instincts. “Okay. But if I don’t like what I see or what I hear, I’ll bring you in for obstruction.”

Tommy smiled genuinely for the first time since they’d arrived. “I’d expect nothing less from _Captain_ James T. Kirk.”

 

~***~

 

“Run this by me again,” Bones said, pulling on his black suit jacket and rolling his shoulders. “Just so I know I’ve got it straight.”

Jim made a frustrated noise and attempted to tie a Windsor knot for the tenth time. “Is it really that hard to understand?” he snarked as Sulu walked in. “Senility setting in early, doc?”

He got a rather inappropriate Klingon hand gesture in response—damn, Bones was not in a good mood. When he had a minute when he wasn’t strangling himself, Jim made a mental note to figure out the reason behind it.

“I have to say I’m confused as well,” Sulu added, busy searching for the correct loop in his belt—somehow he always managed to look graceful even when he couldn’t dress himself. “We left people on the ground on Cygnia Minor and warped over here, only to find that Doctor Leighton lied about producing a viable synthetic grain—so well his _wife_ didn’t know—and we had an extremely awkward meal with them and now we’re going to a _play_?”

“That’s about it, yeah.” Jim glanced up to find Bones and Sulu wearing the same _I’m-not-so-silently-judging-you_ face and rolled his eyes. “Look, Kevin was murdered in a way that ties into the Cygnia Minor crisis— _damn_ it, speaking of ties I’d like to take this thing and—”

“Allow me, Captain.”

Spock slid in front of Jim, who tried _really_ hard not to keel over at the sight of his first officer in a smoky blue three-piece suit, an immaculate white shirt, and a black tie. It was a drastic change from his Starfleet uniform or sparring clothes, and Jim dropped his hands to his sides and stared. Spock deft fingers fastened Jim’s tie and rested briefly on his collarbones before retreating.

Jim looked into the Vulcan’s dark and strikingly human eyes and had a hard time looking away. “Thank you, Mister Spock,” he murmured, before refocusing on the task at hand. “The last person Kevin had contact with before he died was Tommy. Tommy thinks that he’s close to decrypting the genetic coding in the fungus that’s destroying the crops thanks to the information Kevin provided, so we’re going to indulge him.” Jim glanced at Bones and Spock in the mirror as he buttoned his gray jacket. “Is Tommy nuts?”

“I don’t think so,” Bones replied. “This isn’t my kind of science, but it does seem like the man knows his job. I’d say he closer than anybody else is at ousting this damn crop-eating nightmare.”

“Certainly,” Spock agreed. “The scientific information he has provided us with will be useful as we attempt to seek a solution to our problem.” He paused. “The other part of his theory is… supposition.”

Sulu shook his head, pulling on his shoes. “Kodos the Executioner, still alive after all these years…” He looked at Jim. “What’s your take on it, Captain?”

Jim gave the lieutenant points for not beating around the bush. “My take is that we’re running out of other explanations for what’s happening. Kodos was a smart bastard—if anybody could’ve wormed their way out of that mess on Tarsus, it was probably him.”

“He’d barely need to hide, seein’ as there were only nine people in the universe that could identify him,” Bones pointed out, watching Jim closely enough to make him squirm. “And now all but two of ‘em are dead. Would you recognize him if you saw him, Jim?”

“Of course, Bones.” Jim went for casual, forced his expression to smooth out as he adjusted his collar. “I could never forget a face like that.”

Spock was curious. “A face like what, Captain?”

Jim’s eyes lingered on him for a moment, and when he clapped him on the shoulder on his way out the door his fingers dragged. “A monster, Spock. Kodos had the face of a monster.”

 

~***~

 

When they reached the Karidian Theater, Jim understood why Tommy had told them to ditch their uniforms. The men were wearing suits and ties, the women were in sleek evening dresses, and they would’ve stuck out like sore thumbs in gold and blue Starfleet tunics. The building was spacious and well lit, a large stage contained within an even larger auditorium, two balconies flanking the main seating area. Tommy and Martha were clearly regular attendees, because they had a whole row off the center aisle reserved for them.

Bones emitted a low whistle. “How many people you think this place holds?”

Jim sighed, knowing what was coming. “Oh no.”

“Approximately three hundred and fifty—a specific answer cannot be provided because I do not know how many seats there are in the balconies.” Spock waited as Martha sat down, then Tommy, and then Jim. He took the seat on Jim’s left and their arms brushed as they both tried to find comfortable positions on the shared armrest. “Your trepidation was unnecessary, Captain, unless it was in reference to the cramp you are likely to have in your shoulder for the next two hours.”

Jim actually _laughed_ , but didn’t miss the little jolt he felt when the backs of their hands touched. He didn’t pull away, and to his surprise, neither did Spock. “I don’t intend to have a cramp in my shoulder,” he said, a flirty grin emerging on his face for the first time in a while. “This may surprise you, but I’ve never been very good at sharing.”

Bones made a gagging noise and Sulu took that moment to intervene. “So what are we seeing tonight?”

Tommy was silent, staring blankly at the curtains drawn across the stage. The auditorium filled up quickly, the constant murmur of the crowd becoming more prevalent.

Martha filled in the awkward blank: “A production of William Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_ —Jim, you know how found Tommy is of Shakespeare’s work. It’s wonderful and we’ve already been to see it once this week. The actor who commissioned the theater is very successful and travels around with a company of performers, including his daughter—this is the first time he’s been here since the theater’s completion. His name is Anton Karidian—you could’ve guessed the surname, of course—and he’s a marvelous showman.”

Sulu became animated. “I’ve read about this place in a couple of arts and entertainment memos. It’s been getting excellent reviews from—”

“It’s starting,” Tommy muttered, arms crossed over his chest as he sat stiffly in his chair. Sure enough, the house lights dimmed and the stage lights came on. “Jim, pay attention.”

Jim shot Spock a _what the hell_ glance as they were cast in shadows.

He could tell that his first officer, Bones, and Sulu were all unsettled by Tommy’s statement—it sounded too much like an order, a demand. Jim felt like smacking himself for not having Bones conduct a psych evaluation during dinner, because there was something seriously wrong here. The Tommy that Jim knew would have been acting like an excited kid at the prospect at seeing his favorite playwright’s work performed live, not behaving like an embittered old man.

Jim watched as the curtains in front of the stage were whisked aside and the play began. The first scene went by without incident—Bernardo and Marcellus screwed with Horatio’s head by introducing him to Hamlet’s ghost, and the stage went dark during the pause between scenes.

Jim was starting to wonder _what the hell_ again when the second scene opened and the spotlight was thrown onto the man playing Claudius. He was wearing period clothes and had thick silver hair combed back from his face, which was as hawkish and cold as that of a bird of prey. A mustache framed a cruel mouth along with a dusting of dark stubble.

Jim saw beyond that, saw what Tommy had brought him there to see, and it scared the shit out of him. His breathing hitched and his vision wavered and he felt Spock’s hand on his arm, just like on Cygnia Minor but so much worse.

“Captain?” he said in a low voice. “What is it?”

On his other side, Tommy sounded like a warped version of the boy Jim once knew. “See, I told you! Do you see it now? That’s him, isn’t it, that’s—”

The theater was plunged into darkness, people shouting in surprise and annoyance as the stage lights were doused. Jim felt that cramping in his stomach trying to crawl into his throat—something was about to happen, something bad.

He leapt up from his chair, finally able to speak: “We need to get out—”

Jim was thrown off-balance by the phaser beam that passed within inches of his face, and he heard Spock yell his name, probably thinking he’d been hit. It was as red and shiny as a ruby and blasted Tommy in the head, vaporizing his skull and part of his neck as though they had never existed, leaving smoking and cauterized fissures in its wake.

Spock broke Jim’s fall, arms wrapped around his chest, supporting his weight. Jim felt the strength in those arms, the buzz that touch set off in his brain, the way Spock was breathing on the back of his neck, but none of it registered consciously. The lights came back on and people were panicking, expecting another attack and practically trampling one another trying to reach the exits, yet he barely heard them. He knew Bones and Sulu had their previously concealed phasers drawn and were checking the area for the shooter, and that didn’t come through fully either.

Jim’s horrified stare flicked from Tommy’s headless corpse to Martha as she started screaming and then to the stage where Anton Karidian—no, where Kodos the Executioner—had been standing. He was gone, and Jim saw red.

“Kodos,” he snarled, and felt Spock tense up behind him, knew he heard what he said. “Karidian is Kodos!”

A vicious rage was pulsing through him, recognizable as his in some ways but alien in others. His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest, his skeleton too large for his skin. Jim thought he knew what this was— _Khan Khan Khan_ —but couldn’t do anything to stop it, couldn’t hold it back. It was overwhelming, this lust for blood, for revenge on those who had wronged him, those worthless, undeserving—

Spock relayed the news, and then Sulu started yelling to the security team that was herding people toward the fire exits. “Lock the whole thing down! We’re Starfleet—there’s a fugitive in the building!”

Martha flung herself at Jim, her screams turning into wails and sobs, her entire body shaking. Like someone had flipped a switch, the red haze dissipated. Jim sucked in a breath and wrapped his arms around her, holding her while Spock kept them upright. Bones must’ve been up against Spock’s back, because his hand was on Jim’s shoulder and stayed there, rock-steady.

Tommy Leighton was dead, and Kodos was alive. _Nothing like a nightmare come true_ , Jim thought grimly. _And what the fuck just happened to me?_

His vision went white, a hot bolt of agony flashing through his brain.

 _I did_ , a familiar, sinister voice whispered, and that was when Jim passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... yes, I left it there. Sorry? (I'm really not sorry. Hehe.)


	3. part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for language, some gore, and possible technical errors when it comes to phasers. :P)
> 
> Hey guys! Thank you for all the comments on chapter two - I love hearing from you! Also, this fic recently broke 100 kudos, which is AWESOME! <3 Here's part three - it's a bit longer than the last one, and there's a dose of Jim/Bones friendship here, while Spock comes up with a crafty plan. (The Carol/Bones romance is coming in the next chapter, promise!) Hope I can keep doing you guys proud, I'm thinking six chapters now and it just keeps getting longer! We'll see where it takes us!

“Bones, I’m _fine_ ,” Jim insisted, past the point of caring how whiny he sounded. The medical tricorder continued to whirr near his ear, and the edge of the stage was digging uncomfortably into his ass—not a space meant for long-term sitting. Around them members of the police force were cooperating with the security team that had beamed down from the _Enterprise_ , watching the perimeter and questioning frazzled witnesses. “I didn’t even hit my head, Spock caught me—”

“Yeah, but you _fainted_ ,” Bones retorted, his right eyebrow doing that twitchy thing. He looked down at the readings he was getting. “Frankly I’d be happier if you’d puked on Spock’s boots. This ain’t your first rodeo, kid—what happened?”

Jim rubbed his face and wondered when lying to his friends had become less of a bad habit and more of a recreational sport. “I saw Kodos up here and I freaked out—it must’ve been my blood pressure or something.”

Bones exchanged his tricorder for a hypo and stepped closer, waving it menacingly. “Try again.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you!” Jim put a protective hand over the side of his neck—he’d been getting hypos jammed into his jugular since the Academy and had developed a Pavlovian response to the sight of them. He lowered his voice so that he wouldn’t be overheard. “You’ve gotta promise not to freak out first, all right?”

“You _do_ know that saying that is just gonna get me ready to freak out worse?” Bones deadpanned. “Get on with it, I’m not gettin’ any younger.”

Jim looked away for a moment. “I heard… him, in my head.” He saw the confusion on McCoy’s face and shook his head. “Not Kodos—I heard Khan, and then I blacked out.”

Bones clenched his jaw and looked like a patron in a restaurant who wants to send the food back. Finally he hopped up and sat on the stage next to Jim, heaved a sigh, and asked, “Is this the first time this has happened?”

“Yeah. If it had happened before now I would’ve told you.”

Bones snorted. “I’m a doctor, Jim, not a fool—and don’t do contrite, it doesn’t look good on you.” He began ticking off points on his fingers. “So you haven’t slept for more than minutes at a time since you woke up from your coma, and when you _do_ sleep you have vivid nightmares. You barely eat—although I don’t blame you for not putting away dinner tonight, that was terrible, don’t tell the widow—and now you’re hearing the voice of the sociopathic superhuman guy who essentially killed you in your head. Am I missing anything?”

Jim shrugged. “I can’t get drunk, which probably means I’m healing faster. It’s hard to explain—I haven’t felt _different_ until just now.” He thought it over. “It was like seeing what was happening through two sets of eyes at once, mine and Khan’s. We both wanted to chase Kodos, but Spock was holding on to me, and then Martha… Jesus, where is she?”

“I’ve got a couple of nurses with her,” Bones said. “She’s sedated—I was afraid she was gonna hurt herself or somebody else, and we’ve gotta get Leighton’s body out of here to be processed.” The local M.E. was gesturing for him to join the group gathered around the remains. “That’d be my cue.” He touched Jim’s knee briefly. “You stay here, got it? I’ve got more tests to run on you when we get back to the ship.”

“But I should be—”

“Spock’s heading up the hunt for Kodos, and Chekov and Sulu are trying to figure out where that shot came from—I’d say they’ve got this pretty well in hand.” He ruffled Jim’s hair and then pointed at him as he walked away. “Sit. Stay!”

 

~***~

 

Jim only had about a minute to pout at being left behind before Ensign Pavel Chekov came scurrying up to him, a gleam in his eye and his Russian accent at the ready. “Keptin! Hikaru believes he knows where the shot was taken from!”

Jim stood. “Show me.”

 

~***~

 

Sulu was waiting for them on the catwalk that ran behind the backdrop screen on the stage, just above the first row of lights. It was so well concealed that Jim hadn’t noticed it from his seat, and it provided a way for stagehands to travel without having to dodge around extra set pieces and racks of costumes. Unfortunately, there were access ladders at either end of the span, both of which were near the theater’s rear exits.

“The shot didn’t come from the stage,” he said, giving Chekov a hand off the top rung of the ladder. “The trajectory’s wrong and the glow from the phaser beam would have flared against the backdrop screen. There’s no way we wouldn’t have seen a silhouette. So the shot had to come from here—approximately where you’re standing, Captain.”

Jim turned and faced the railing, which gave him a view of the entire auditorium. He took out his phaser and set it to stun, the blue bolt snapping into place. He knew the average Type-2 had a range of around twenty meters, and he guessed that the distance between the catwalk and the row where they had been sitting was at least twice that. The weapon wasn’t powerful enough to reach its target, yet it had.

Jim turned on the phaser’s guided sight, kept his finger off the trigger, and aimed at Bones’ back. He was standing directly in front of where Tommy’s body was, and the blue dot didn’t reach McCoy’s suit jacket.

“The phaser was modified,” Jim said. “Damn it.” He pulled out his communicator. “Kirk to Giotto—start looking for an extra power pack for a Type-2 phaser, not the phaser itself, the shooter probably took that with them. The extra pack will have the connective wires exposed and burned out.”

The Security Chief was his usual charming self: “Understood, Captain. Giotto out.”

“No love loss there,” Sulu observed.

Jim shrugged. “That’s Cupcake. You’d think a couple years with me would’ve mellowed him out.” He looked at Chekov. “Can I have the extra power pack for your phaser, Ensign?”

Pavel handed it over, and he and Hikaru watched with interest as Jim demonstrated how to wire the extra pack to the one already loaded in the phaser while avoiding electrocution.

Jim leveled the phaser at Bones again, and this time the blue dot loomed large between his shoulders. “I’m pretty sure this is illegal, but I’ll guarantee it’s what our shooter did.”

“But there was no sight flash at the time of the shooting!” Chekov exclaimed. “How could the assassin have hit their mark in pitch darkness? Night-vision goggles, perhaps?”

Jim held in a laugh at how garbled the word _goggles_ sounded coming from Chekov—it was more like _woggles_ —and considered that. “Probably. It was a perfect shot.”

 _And if there was one thing Kodos was never good at, it was shooting people_ , he added mentally. _He always had somebody else do it for him_.

Jim’s comm beeped. He passed his phaser and the extra pack into Sulu’s capable hands to be dismantled. “Kirk here.”

“It’s Giotto, sir. We located a power pack like you described and it was overheated, Lieutenant Kyle burned himself when he picked it up. Looks like it fell from up there, my guess is the shooter dropped it on their way down the ladder.” There was some muffled speaking in the background. “I’ve also got a young lady down here who says this Karidian fellow is her father—she’d like to speak with you.”

 

~***~

 

They climbed down the ladder to meet up with Giotto, who was doing his best to be professional and not admire Lenore Karidian.

She looked nothing like her father and Jim thought was a very good thing—instead she was all curves and lustrous skin, freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. Her hazel eyes held none of the malice that Kodos the Executioner had been so fond of. She was still in costume for her part as Gertrude in _Hamlet_ and her black hair was swept into a painfully tight-looking bun.

Jim realized belatedly that he had been staring at her for a while without speaking and tried to laugh it off. “Sorry, I haven’t gotten much sleep lately—I’m Captain James Kirk, from the _USS Enterprise_.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Captain,” she said, shaking his hand. “Although I wish it could have been under more pleasant circumstances.” She glanced in the direction of the seats. “Was that poor man a friend of yours?”

Jim nodded. “He was.”

“My condolences.” Lenore paused, looking embarrassed. “I was just wondering if you had managed to locate my father? It must seem suspicious that he took off like this—I know you have to question him, but he’s a good man.”

Jim grappled with his self-control and managed to not laugh in her face—that wouldn’t have been very captain-like, after all, and he didn’t want to get slapped. When he spoke his tone was measured and cool as he channeled his inner Spock. “He’s the proprietor of the theater, so we’d have to speak with him anyway, but I understand your concern. We’re not going to pass judgment ahead of time—you have my word.”

She smiled. “That’s what I was hoping you would say.”

Sulu crossed his arms. “Ma’am, is there any reason you can think of for your father’s behavior?”

Lenore considered that, picking at the hem of one of her garish sleeves, eyes thoughtful. “He could have panicked… the lights went out very suddenly. Or maybe he ran away when he saw the shot—none of you would do that, of course, but my father doesn’t have your training.”

“Perhaps he thought he would be next,” Chekov suggested.

Those were all reasonable explanations, so reasonable that they made doubt begin to bleed into Jim’s mind—was he _sure_ that the man on the stage was Kodos? It had been a long time since Jim had seen him last, and he had only caught a glimpse before the lights went out. Tommy had seemed sure that Karidian was Kodos, but Tommy had wanted to believe it so badly that he had tried to impress his distorted reality on somebody else—that meant he had had a few screws loose.

 _So do you_ , Jim reminded himself. _There’s nothing like having a frozen, augmented nutbar rooting around in your brain._ He waited, as though he was expecting a response, and cursed at himself a second later. _Oh good, encourage him—_ that’ll _end well._

Lenore opened her mouth to speak again, but was cut off by a cranky doctor’s voice cutting through two layers of curtains.

“ _Jim_! You better get out here!”

Jim’s _Different Ways Bones Says My Name_ catalogue defined that particular tone as _shit just got ten times worse_ , rather than _I’m in mortal danger_ or _help me pick out socks_ —those three things were very different, although they all involved derision that Jim was sure wasn’t sincere. Mostly.

Jim excused himself, jogged across the stage, hit the theater floor and continued up the aisle at a walk. A shroud had been draped over Tommy’s body, but he stopped a couple of rows away regardless. The witnesses were gone, leaving the auditorium unpopulated save for two ensigns looking for the discarded murder weapon.

McCoy was perched on the back of the seat next to Tommy’s, his comm in one hand and scrawling notes on a PADD with the other. He was scowling but not as much as earlier, and nothing on his face was twitching sporadically. “… I’m about to tell him—have them beam down. Thanks, M’Benga.”

Bones shut the comm and sighed, sticking it on his belt. “Goddamn, I’m too old for this,” he muttered, before getting to his feet and meeting Jim halfway. “I just called for the recovery team for the second time in the same day—and again, you aren’t going to believe this. I hardly do myself.”

Jim’s eyebrows furrowed. “You need to do an autopsy?” A sick chuckle squeezed his voice box as he gestured toward the space where Tommy’s head should’ve been. “Shouldn’t the cause of death be pretty obvious?”

Bones sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Remember how I told you that Kevin Riley was poisoned with the same shit that’s in the crops on Cygnia Minor? And how that was what killed him, not the fall into the gully?”

“Yeah. And?”

“From what I can tell, if that phaser shot hadn’t taken off Leighton’s head, he was going to die tomorrow anyway.”

Jim’s eyes went wide. “He was poisoned too?”

“Not just poisoned— _being_ poisoned.” Bones showed him the statistics laid out on the PADD. “I need a better look at the body and for the science department to process the samples I sent up, but I think it was the same strain of fungus, just less concentrated. The doses were probably spread out over a period of time.”

“When did it start?”

“I’d say around the time Leighton had his first chat with Riley, from what he told us, but don’t quote me on that.”

“Which is around the same time the fungus invaded Cygnia Minor,” Jim said slowly, realization dawning on his face. He grabbed the lapel of McCoy’s suit and hung on. “Bones, how do you think the poison was administered?”

“Damn it, kid, I can’t—”           

“Just guess!”

“It was ingested! There’s signs of—” Bones cut himself off as his expression mirrored Jim’s. “The _garden_ —the garden at their house! They had test grains everywhere, all different variations on Leighton’s theories and the data Riley sent— _shit_ , what if one of Leighton’s attempts at a cure mutated into the fungus and he didn’t know it? Martha told me they’d been eating some of the grains—”

He shut up abruptly and looked as horrified as Jim suddenly felt.

They took off at a sprint back down the aisle, with Jim half shouting, “Where did you leave her?”

“Dressing room!”

“Where’s that?”

Bones grabbed Jim by the back of his jacket and yanked him in a different direction. “Not that way!”

They whizzed by the stage left catwalk ladder and down a narrow corridor—so narrow that Jim got pushed to one side and banged his shoulder on a fire extinguisher case. He barely felt it, didn’t break stride, and hoped like hell Bones hadn’t noticed. He probably wouldn’t even have a bruise later and that would fall under the heading of _not normal_.

They burst into the dressing room just as Bones’ comm beeped with an incoming signal, which turned out to be coming from a young nurse in science blues turning the dials on her own comm. Jim groped for her name—Sanders, Saunders, something like that. He’d made an effort to remember as many crewmembers as he could, but right now that wasn’t important.

She looked relieved that they came plowing through the door so soon. “Doctor McCoy, Leighton’s wife had some kind of seizure—”

Jim was already on his knees next to the other nurse—Belane, he recalled—and she was injecting Martha with a hypospray. Her patient was lying on the floor, her dress soaked through with sweat, hair tangled around her head as her fingers clawed at the carpet. She was breathing heavily and her limbs twitched at odd intervals.

“Vitals are dropping rapidly,” Belane reported, waving a tricorder along Martha’s torso. “They spiked less than a minute ago, we can’t tell if it’s a reaction to the sedative—”

“It’s much worse than that,” Bones said grimly, digging through his collection of hypos. If Jim had been paying attention to him and not to Martha, he would’ve seen Bones’ legendary steady hands shake. “She’s been eating the fungus for weeks without knowing—come on, Martha, don’t do this—”

She made a scared noise in her throat as her eyes rolled around in her head. Jim didn’t think twice about pulling her into his lap, cradling her skull with his hand. She raised one of her juddering arms and clenched her fingers in his sleeve.

Jim tried hard not to compare Martha to all the other desperate people he’d held exactly like this as they died, but the images came anyway. He touched his lips to her head, murmured to her in a way that he hoped was comforting.

Bones injected Martha with two hypos in quick succession, swearing under his breath, but it was too late—without something to kill the fungus, he couldn’t save her.

She gasped in her last breath, went still for a moment, and then her head snapped away from Jim and she expelled a torrent of pasty black ooze from her mouth—the fungus making its appearance. Everybody in the room had let out a scream of shock and disgust, Jim was sure, but it was hard to hear anything over the ringing in his ears.

All movement ceased, and Martha Leighton was dead.

 

~***~

 

“Mister Sulu, Mister Chekov, I want everything in the Leightons’ garden brought aboard the ship to be examined,” Jim said a few moments later, as the three of them stood in the corridor. The recovery team had already collected Martha’s body for transport, and Bones and the nurses had gone with them. “We have no way of knowing which plant it was that started this blight, though, so be careful—let’s just hope it didn’t make it to the groundwater.”

“Aye, sir.” Hikaru looked at Jim, shifted his stance. “Captain, I’m sure if you’d like to take a breather we can get Mister Spock over here—”

“Thank you, Lieutenant, but that’s not necessary.”

“Are you sure, Keptin?” Pavel looked more than a little concerned. “It would be no trouble—”

Jim’s smile felt brittle. “Thank you both, but no—I’m fine.” When they didn’t move, he added, “Dismissed.” They left, and he took out his comm. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ , come in.”           

“Uhura here, sir. What do you need?”

“Pull those shuttle manifests from Cygnia Minor again and see if anyone with the surname Karidian traveled there before Kevin Riley did.” Jim paused as he thought of something else. “Uhura, can you tell me where the Karidian Players performed before coming to Planet Q?”

“Hold on.” He could hear pinging as she worked her station. “No Karidians on any of the tourist or research shuttle manifests, Captain.” Uhura hummed thoughtfully. “Interestingly enough, the last place the Karidian Players’ shuttle was recorded was Cygnia Major—same star system as Cygnia Minor.” She lowered her voice. “Are you thinking an _actor_ is the one who engineered the blight?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure what to think anymore.” Jim felt Spock’s familiar presence at his back and some of the tension ebbed from between his shoulders. “Pull up whatever data you can on Anton and Lenore Karidian, please, and have it ready for me when we beam back up—that should be soon, by the way.”

Nyota was smiling on the other end of the comm, though she would never admit it. “Mister Scott will be grateful—as much as he loves this ship, he hates that chair. _Enterprise_ out.”

Jim put his comm away and faced Spock. There was about an inch of room between them because the hallway was so narrow, and the great starship captain hoped fervently that his breath didn’t stink. “Did you find Ko—Karidian?”

“I did,” the Vulcan confirmed, not appearing to be bothered by their close proximity. Spock was one of those people that had a _personal space_ thing, but that hadn’t seemed to apply to Jim lately. “He is reuniting with his daughter under Lieutenant Giotto’s supervision—I assumed that you would want to question him yourself. He claims that when the electricity went out he left the stage to attempt to find the secondary power switch for the theater.”

Spock paused, and when he spoke again his voice had lost its clinical edge. “I encountered Doctor McCoy on my way to find you and he informed me of what happened.” His expression softened a little. “Are you all right?”

Jim envisioned what he looked like—the permanent bags under his eyes combined with the stubble and the rumpled suit—and shook his head. “No, Spock, I’m not. I may never be all right, the way this is going.” He snorted. “I’m probably next on the chopping block.”

“That,” Spock said, expression darkening, “is not going to happen. I cannot lose you again.” They stared at one another with wide eyes—obviously that wasn’t something he’d meant to say out loud. It hung there for a moment, and then Spock turned the conversation on its head by asking, “Do you trust me?”

 _Isn’t this supposed to go the other way?_ Jim wondered to himself, but the answer came to him instantly. “Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you… wait, are you _scheming_? Why, Mister Spock, how _human_ of you!” Jim felt a brief flash of guilt for being amused after two of his friends had just died, but shoved it away—this was too good, and it would probably never happen again. “That’s _my_ job, Commander, last time I checked.”

Spock raised an eyebrow, a gesture that was somehow questioning and challenging at the same time.

Jim couldn’t help himself. “What did you have in mind?”

 

~***~

 

“Are you Anton Karidian?” Jim asked, approaching the man he believed to be Kodos and his daughter. He gritted his molars and worked to keep his expression pleasant without bordering on insanity. “I’m Captain Kirk, and I believe you’ve already met my first officer, Spock.”

“I have,” Karidian responded, and they shook hands. His hand was firm and slightly calloused, not sunburned and cracked like Jim had remembered, but the touch alone was enough to make him want to scream. “Good to meet you, Captain, and it’s a good thing you sent someone out to look for me—as I’m sure you know, this theater is relatively new and I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of it just yet.”

Jim smiled so convincingly that the only one who could sense his discomfort was Spock. “Understandable—I was the same way with my ship.”

Giotto managed to subtly turn a snort into a cough.

“I can’t express how sorry I am about what happened to your friends,” Karidian continued, looking and sounding completely sincere. “During a play, of all times. Pardon me for asking, but do you think Doctor Leighton was the intended target of that blast?”

“It appears that way,” Spock said, “but we have to take into account that the shot was fired from a Starfleet-issue weapon into a group containing four Starfleet officers. Our involvement is paramount in the deaths of both Doctor Leighton and his wife, so it has become our investigation.”

“Not _ours_ , per se,” Jim added, gesturing between Spock and himself. “There’s a Starfleet investigative team en route to Planet Q—” _yeah, that sounds like it could be real_ “—and they’ll be working with the local authorities to find out exactly what happened. Unfortunately, the theater won’t be able to operate during that time because it’s still a crime scene.”

Lenore hung her head. “We were afraid of that—I mean, I know _why_ , but we were just settling in here. Now what are we going to do?”

 Jim wasn’t one to squander an opportunity. “Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a favor.” _Yeah, Anton, go bash your head into that wall and don’t stop—oh, wait, can’t say that. Damn._

“Considering what’s happened here tonight, why not?” Karidian spread his hands. “What is it?”

“Are you aware of the crisis on Cygnia Minor?” Spock asked with his usual candor.

“Yes, we recently completed a string of performances on Cygnia Major, and as I’m sure you know the two planets aren’t far apart, so news spreads rather quickly.” Karidian didn’t make a comparison to Tarsus IV. “Why?”

“Things are pretty dismal over there,” Jim said, “and it’s our next stop. Since your troupe won’t be able to perform here for a while, I was wondering if you’d like to join us on the _Enterprise_ and come entertain the colonists.”

Lenore’s whole being lit up. “Oh, that would be fantastic! A ride on a starship—that’s not something everyone can say they’ve done!” She looked beseechingly at her father. “Oh, Dad, can we?”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to the others…” Karidian trailed off deliberately, a twinkle in his eye. When Lenore looked disappointed, he finished, “But I don’t see why not! It sounds like fun.” He put his arm around his daughter when she hugged him and said, “We have about a hundred people total in the Players—can your ship carry that many extra passengers?”

“Affirmative,” Spock replied.

“Oh, good!” Karidian laughed, and it was the same laugh that Jim had heard while the man watched scores of people die in front of him, the same laugh he never thought he’d hear again and that still made his skin crawl. “I’d hate to have to leave anyone behind, but some people are more necessary than others.”

 _Now there’s a sentiment I can agree with,_ that cruel, deep voice from earlier said in Jim’s head as they parted ways. He did his best to ignore it.

 

~***~

 

About an hour later, Jim was back on the _Enterprise_ and wearing command gold, running on the watery coffee from the replicators and sheer force of will. What he was about to do next would probably mean no catnaps for a while, unless he wanted to get stabbed in the back.

If Karidian _was_ Kodos and was responsible for the deaths of Kevin Riley and Thomas Leighton, then it was only natural that his new target would be Jim—by killing his last Tarsus witness he would protect his identity forever. It had been Spock’s idea to invite him aboard the _Enterprise_ under the guise of bringing the Karidian Players to Cygnia Minor. His first officer’s reasoning was that if Karidian were to make a move, at least he would be doing it on unfamiliar territory. Stopping the ship mid-warp was Jim’s contribution—he figured keeping Karidian away from Cygnia Minor for as long as possible was a good thing, lest he do more damage to the crops or the people.

Jim had to admit that he and Spock made a damn good team, both in combat and in planning. He wondered if his first officer had always secretly been this devious, or if Jim wasn’t the only one Khan had affected. Either way, it was helpful, and bound to drive Bones up a wall.

“Keptin on the bridge!” Chekov exclaimed as the turbolift doors opened.

Scotty leapt out of the captain’s chair like he’d been electrocuted. “Oh thank God!” He straightened out his red shirt and huffed at the crew’s amused expressions. “What? If I had to watch that rock go by one more time you woulda seen me spinnin’ on my head! May I go back to me engines now?”

Jim clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, Scotty—go before you have a stroke.” He hung on and added in a lower tone, “Sulu’s going to take us out of orbit, put us on course, and in about ten minutes we’re going to have a problem with the warp drive.”

Scotty didn’t get it at first, and looked at him like he’d just suggested that they skin Keenser for boots. “But Jim, the repairs—”

Jim was patient. “We’re _going_ to have a _problem_ with the warp drive in ten minutes, Mister Scott.” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you understand?”

“I don’t— _oh_!” Scotty nodded vigorously and winked at him. “Aye, sir! Right, then!”

The engineer left the bridge and Jim took his seat, stretching out until he felt comfortable. He crossed his legs, let out a mental _here goes nothing_ and said, “Mister Sulu, take us out of orbit. Chekov, plot a course back to Cygnia Minor, warp factor five.”

Jim rotated his chair and his eyes passed over Spock’s station, which was being monitored by a chipper lieutenant in science blues. The commander was down in the botany section of the ship, hopefully pulling apart plant fibers and finding something that would kill the fungus.

The bridge didn’t feel the same to Jim without Spock, though—and Christ, when had they turned into a married couple?

 _Pull it together, Kirk._ He and Spock had grown closer as coworkers and friends over past couple years, especially after what happened with Khan, but Jim had received zero indication that the spark he felt was reciprocated. They ate together, played chess together, had some kind of weird connection, and that seemed to be it.

Jim wasn’t much for long-term romantic involvements—even when he had feelings for someone, they were buried under seven layers of crap that nobody bothered to dig through—so he pretended it didn’t bother him. To say that Jim had _trust issues_ didn’t begin to cover it. Somehow Bones had wormed his way into Jim’s heart—or vice versa, hard to tell—but he was a stubborn bastard and they’d lived together, puked together, and drunkenly cuddled on more than one occasion. But to be totally transparent with someone like Spock… Jim wasn’t sure that was something he could handle.

And let’s not forget, Spock and Nyota were an item and had been since the Academy—how was Jim supposed to top _that_? He wasn’t going to try, because Spock was his friend and so was Nyota, and he would be damned if he was going to be a home wrecker. He cared for them both in different ways, and if they were happy together then he was just going to have to deal with it.

Jim approached Uhura, who was still running Communications after what had to be a fourteen-hour shift. She turned toward him in her chair, tapping the silver headset in her ear as she said, “Captain, I pulled those files that you asked for from the ship’s computer.”

Jim took the PADD she handed him, scrolling through the irrelevant pages on Anton and Lenore Karidian. Due to his previous train of thought, he hedged, “Can I ask you something?”

Nyota arched an eyebrow. “Are you going to even if I say no?”

“Probably.”

She waved a hand. “Shoot.”

He glanced up. “Why did you change shifts? I signed the request because I figure it’s your business, but I was curious.”

“I changed shifts because it was going to become very awkward for another crewmember and I to be on the bridge at the same time,” Uhura answered crisply, dragging her fingers across a screen. “And that’s all you need to know.” When he didn’t respond right away, she looked up at him and was startled by his expression. “Jim? What’s wrong?”

 Jim was staring at the text on the PADD in disbelief. “Anton Karidian is a _Starfleet_ -manufactured identity? He’s in _witness protection_?” The urge to punch something grew stronger as the shock wore off. “What the fu—”

They dropped out of warp and he lost his balance, smashing his face into the nearest solid object. “Ow ow ow, crap,” Jim muttered as he sat up. He had a cut on one cheek that was bleeding and a split down the middle of an eyebrow. He rubbed the blood out of his eye and remembered he had to act surprised as he stumbled back to his chair, the cracked PADD clenched in one hand. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, sir!” Sulu sounded equal parts worried and annoyed. “Nothing on my end—we just lost warp capability!”

“All systems are nominal,” Chekov added, fiddling with his control panel, “I do not see why this happened!”

Uhura chipped in, “All decks reporting minor damage and injuries, Captain.”

“Standard procedure, Lieutenant.” Jim hit the intercom button on his armrest. “Bridge to Engineering—did we hit a speed bump or something?”

“Not exactly, sir!” Scotty sounded appropriately freaked out, and Jim envisioned him waving an electric wrench around like a crazy man. “We had a teeny power surge and one of those new bloody circuits connected to the warp core decided it wanted to shit the bed! We’re lookin’ at an hour or two of repair time minimum, providing I’ve got the parts and I can find the source—”

Jim made a note to trade for some aged Dewars the next time they hit a Starbase—his chief engineer was earning his keep with acting skills alone. “Get it fixed, Scotty,” he said, pouring some extra urgency on there for flavor. “We have to get the next round of supplies to Cygnia Minor on time!”

“Aye, Captain, I’ll do my best.”

Jim pressed a different button and opened a ship wide channel. “Everyone, this is the Captain speaking. A few minutes ago the _Enterprise_ suffered a malfunction related to the warp core—nothing dangerous, but enough to drop us here. The crew’s seen worse, but we’ve got civilians onboard, and I wanted to tell you that there’s nothing to worry about and we’ll be back on course to Cygnia Minor in no time. Kirk out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as much of a cliffhanger this time... MAJOR Kirk/Spock ahead, and some more Khan too. ;)


	4. part four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for language, references to cannibalism, self-harm (sort of?), me objectifying ZQ and making up a first name for Kodos, and a serious cliffhanger ending.)
> 
> Hello hello, lovely people! Thank you SO SO SO much for all the kudos and comments, they're excellent motivational tools. <3 Especially when it's hot as balls - as it has been for the past week - and I don't feel like doing anything, I read your encouragement and get my ass in gear. Anyway, here's chapter four - we've hit some Kirk/Spock AND Carol/Bones in this one, and Khan makes a reappearance, all as promised. Hopefully you guys enjoy it!

Since the _Enterprise_ would be stationary for a while due to the “malfunction” in Engineering, Jim left the bridge under Sulu’s watch and headed down to the science department.

Jim knew if he didn’t show up in Sickbay for those tests Bones wanted to run within the hour, his CMO would make a gigantic scene. Like, _are you trying to make my hair turn white_ , _you have some nerve you little shit_ , and _hey, if they’re all staring it’s because of_ you— _that_ kind of scene, Jim could picture it now. So he was going to put in an appearance, but first he wanted to see if Spock had made any progress in sorting through the stuff from the Leightons’ garden.

Jim jumped when a row of blue and green plants that resembled Earth’s sunflowers turned toward him and made a cooing noise as he walked through the doors to Botany. They’d been there for months and always did the same thing, but it never failed to startle him.

“Damn it, that’s still weird,” he muttered to himself, before calling in a louder voice, “Hey, Spock! You in here?”

“Row Nine, Captain,” came the answer, muffled slightly by the dense foliage. “Be careful—some of the vines are quite… tactile.”

Jim chuckled as he gently pried a length of purple ivy off his leg. “Yeah, I can see that.” He wove his way around plants that varied from single leaves the size of his pinkie nail, to trees that threatened to touch the vaulted ceiling of their climate-controlled enclosure. They came from all around the galaxy, were arranged alphabetically by planet of origin, and were so spread out that they left little room for walking.

He saw Spock sitting at a sleek white workbench, shifting the cells of a piece of wheat around. The lighting above the station allowed for shadowed contrasts on his angular face, and Jim took a moment to admire. Then he cleared his throat and asked, “Have you been able to find anything useful in Tommy’s research?”

“The late doctor had many hypotheses regarding the genetic coding of flora; unfortunately, they appear to have been primarily cosmetic.” Spock leaned away from the magnifier and inclined his head, inviting Jim to join him. “You will see what I mean.”

Jim felt an absurd pang of nervousness as he sat down next to Spock and willed himself to not knock anything over or sneeze on the petri dishes. Their legs and sides were a centimeter away from touching—wow, Spock was _warm_ —and Jim turned the magnifier and put his eyes up to it. “He modified it so that it looks healthy on the outside, but on the inside it’s still rotten.”

“Precisely. My theory is that the data Kevin Riley provided Doctor Leighton with was missing a few key elements that factor into the growth of the fungus; thus, Leighton was unable to fully purge the fungus from the grain. It was rendered inert for a short period of time, but then resumed its consumption of oxygenated cells. Leighton did not possess advanced testing equipment and sight aids in his home laboratory, so he mistakenly thought that he had destroyed the fungus and deemed the crops safe to ingest.”

Jim glanced at Spock, and their faces were so close together that he was suddenly very glad he’d brushed his teeth after he showered. During their conversation at the Karidian, he’d been so preoccupied with possible halitosis that he wasn’t able to appreciate how Spock’s lashes framed out the dark pools of his eyes, or how his skin was so smooth that it appeared to lack pores.

Jim banged his knee on the workbench to break the spell that his first officer had unknowingly cast. If his next words sounded hitched, it was totally because of the pain—totally. “What do you think the missing elements are?”

Spock let out a quiet huff of air through his nose, which was as close as he got to a sigh. “Unfortunately, that is a question I am currently unable to answer. There are separate anomalies that occur in each type of grain, and cataloguing them for comparison is a laborious process.”

Jim rested an elbow on the workbench, hooking his fingers together near his hip, eyebrows furrowing in thought. “Have you compared the samples from Tommy’s garden to the ones you took from Cygnia Minor?”

“I was about to do so when you approached, Captain.”

“You mind if I stay and watch?”

“Of course not.”

Few people believed that Jim Kirk was capable of remaining quiet and still for more than a minute at a time, but that’s exactly what he did for the next half-hour. He watched Spock work and let his mind drift, listened to the clicks and beeps of various machines and the _pitter-patter_ from the automatic misters, which was so soft… it was nothing like…

 

~***~

           

_—the rain on Tarsus IV, which came in pounding sheets after weeks without a hint of moisture. A mid-July thunderstorm in Iowa couldn’t hold a candle to the fury and tumult that erupted over the ravaged colony planet._

_The wind was usually howling, but a change in air pressure drastic enough to make Jim’s ears hurt was an indicator that a storm was coming. The sky took on an unnaturally greenish tinge. Clouds dark like obsidian would coalesce quickly and thunder would shake the ground and those who stood on it. Lightning struck five or six points at once, and more than one person who didn’t get to shelter in time was killed by the falling electricity._

_Jim never got a chance to bury those people because some desperate, ragged scavenger made off with the cooked flesh. The animals had died long ago—any scavengers on Tarsus were human._

_In this dream Jim was in the middle of one of those storms, watching rotted plants and contaminated soil turn into a muddy river that washed away everything in its path. The lightning illuminated a spot off to his left, and he looked over without wanting to, saw Kodos wearing Khan’s face, heard his words though they lacked sound:_

We have already begun. Shall we see how it ends?

_Jim stared up at the roaring sky when the rain abruptly ceased. He blinked, confused, and felt something wet hit his cheek, splattering on his skin and running down his jaw. He raised a hand to wipe it away, and his fingers were stained red._

_The rain started falling again, twice as hard, but now it was blood. The coppery smell and the sticky feel of it invaded every cell of his body, until there was nothing else to feel, nothing else to see—_

 

~***~

 

Jim’s head snapped back against the floor of the botany department, pain bursting across his cheek. The lights were too bright and he was breathing hard, pulse pounding in his temples. It took him a second to realize he’d just been punched awake, and a second after _that_ to understand that Spock had hit him. Not hard enough to do any real damage, but he was going to have a hell of a bruise.

Another moment passed and Jim’s addled brain worked something else out—Spock was sitting on him.

_Oh my God. Oh my fucking God._

Spock was _straddling_ him—damn his thighs were strong—and there were a million reasons why that was a bad thing, but suddenly Jim couldn’t think of a single one. He _did_ flap his arms awkwardly and make a dying fish noise, which was very sexy. As Jim attempted to divert blood flow away from his dick using mental control only, he managed to ask, “What… happened?”

Spock’s chest was heaving and he didn’t answer right away. His hands hung down by his legs, one still clenched into a fist. “You fell asleep… again, only this time you would not wake.” His voice was hoarse, as though he’d been yelling. His blue tunic was ripped in places and he had the beginnings of a shiner, along with three scratches under his jaw oozing green blood, the skin around them livid. “After my other attempts to bring you to consciousness failed, I hit you.” His gaze shifted briefly to the floor. “You were hurting yourself. I did not see an alternative course of action.”

Jim raised a red-stained hand to his neck, felt the curved gouges around his jugular and the pair on his face that barely missed his left eye. He looked at his hands and saw the skin and pieces of fabric under his fingernails. Small tears littered the arms of his own gold tunic, blood soaking through in some spots, as if he had been trying to claw his way out of it—considering the dream he’d had, that was a good possibility.

Jim noticed the wounds on Spock’s neck and tentatively reached up, touching the spot just below the cuts. He swallowed thickly, guilt eating at his chest. “Did I… Jesus, are you okay?” _Of course he’s not okay, you goddamn moron._ It was nice to hear a voice in his head that was his own, even if it was berating.

“I will be fine, Captain.” Spock rested a hand on Jim’s outstretched arm for a moment before getting to his feet. “You must go to Sickbay for medical attention. Would you like me to call for transport?”

“No, no, I’m good.” Jim took Spock’s offered hand and stood, but didn’t let go until his dizziness faded. He almost reconsidered the stretcher, but then pictured Bones’ face if he came into Sickbay on a table again and decided against it. “I had a nightmare—a bad one, like the one where you heard me screaming. I am so sorry that I hurt you, you have no idea.”

“You are forgiven… Jim.” Spock paused briefly before using his name and then studied his expression, as though he was trying to work out a puzzle. “You were not yourself. In my efforts to wake you, I touched your mind—I did not initiate a meld because that would have been intrusive, but I sensed a presence that was not your own.” He let the statement hang there, and didn’t ask the question he clearly wanted to.

Jim glanced around at the shattered test tubes and jostled equipment, which was the destruction wrought while he’d unknowingly struggled with Spock. He was glad that nobody else had been in Botany at the time, because they would have seen him freak out in his sleep and he could’ve hurt them. Miraculously it didn’t look like anything related to the fungus had been damaged, but he probably owed that to Spock, too—he’d steered Jim away from the workbench and onto the floor.

Now Jim looked at his battered first officer—who had become so much more than that to him—and felt very small. “I… there’s something I need to tell you. Come on—we can talk on the way to Sickbay.”

“My injuries are minor and do not require—”

“Please, Spock?” Jim tried to dial back the desperation he felt, but after what he’d just done he _had_ to explain himself. “Come with me. Don’t make me turn it into an order.” He grinned, and it was only a little forced. “Besides, you love visiting Bones!”

“My relationship with Doctor McCoy could be described in many ways, but I do not think love would be one.”

 

~***~

 

“It’s about time you—” Bones stopped midsentence when he turned around and saw the state Jim was in. He threw the aside the PADD he’d been reading and came over, guiding him to the nearest bio-bed by the elbow. “Good fucking _God_ , kid, what’d you do, lose a fight with a bear?”

“Apparently I tried to tear myself a new one while I was sleeping,” Jim replied, wincing as he sat down and then yelping when a hypo got jammed into his neck. “Hey! What was that?”

“A broad-spectrum antibiotic—if you did all that with your nails, I may have to dunk you in a hydrogen peroxide bath. I doubt _you_ know where your hands have been.” Bones went back to the turbo-lift and herded a reluctant Spock into Sickbay and onto a bed. “I take it you tried to intervene, Mister Spock?”

“Affirmative, Doctor.”

Bones chuckled, loaded up another hypo, and injected Spock with it. “Well, the more you’re around him, you’ll find that when Jim’s determined to beat himself off—”

“ _Bones_!” Jim whined. “Could you not?”

“ _You_ dragged me out into this black airless hell, you get what you pay for!” The words were irate, but there was fondness in the doctor’s voice… somewhere. Possibly. Bones busted out the dermal regenerator and began moving it over Jim’s gouged cheek as he asked Spock, “Any progress on killing this bug?”

Spock informed McCoy of his work in the botany department prior to Jim going off his nut, and Jim tried very hard to not fidget as the regenerator hummed near his face. He had a moment to think, and since he was never one for introspection, he thought about the fungus. Before he knew it, he was saying, “The elements that Tommy didn’t factor into making a cure—they occur in all the specimens from both planets, but not in the same way?”

Spock nodded. “Yes. In the grains I tested from Cygnia Minor they were scattered throughout the plant but also centralized in groups, and in the two cases I was able to test from Leighton’s garden there were groupings only.”

“Is it possible that the ones that are scattered occur naturally, and the ones in the groups are synthetic?”

Bones glanced at Jim, his eyebrow doing The Thing again. “What are you thinkin’?”

“Tarsus IV and Cygnia Minor are similar in atmosphere, climate and geological makeup—that’s why they were both chosen for crop colonies.” Jim barely flinched when Bones stabbed him with another hypo. “If Kodos caused the blight on Tarsus IV, he had help from the planet—part of eugenics is modifying something that already exists. What if the elements appeared naturally on Tarsus but he wasn’t sure they would on Cygnia Minor—”

“—so he replicated them to the best of his ability and bred it into the fungus to ensure success,” Spock finished. “If true, that would account for all of the anomalies in the grains and explain why the fungus and Leighton’s attempt at a cure cancelled one another out. I can continue my comparative test between the crops on Cygnia Minor and Leighton’s specimens when I return to Botany. If all of Leighton’s crops contain only the synthetic elements, we will have an answer.” He looked impressed. “An astute observation, Captain.”

“Careful—any more hot air and his head won’t fit through the door,” Bones said, proceeding to cut off what was left of Jim’s shirt with a laser scalpel. At the indignant look he got from Jim, the doctor countered, “Since when are you shy? And speaking of your head, I’ve got some fun scans to run—”

“Bridge to Captain Kirk, come in.”

 _Score number two for Uhura_ , Jim thought as he flailed for the intercom button on the side of the bio-bed with his left arm, and Bones kept a hold on his right one as he patched up some shallow cuts. “Kirk here—what’s up?”

“We’re receiving a transmission from Cygnia Minor, Captain,” Nyota informed him, her professional tone a bit shaken. “It’s Doctor Marcus on the other end, but the signal’s bad—there’s something wrong with their communications system. I’ll boost it as much as I can.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant—pipe it down to Sickbay, please.” Jim turned to Bones, who had gone stock-still. “There’s a view screen down here, right?”

McCoy swallowed hard and nodded, setting the regenerator down with a clatter. “Yeah, there is—I gotta go turn it on.” He hurried away to the computer station and started punching commands on the touchscreen.

Bones’ behavior now reminded Jim of how testy he’d been at the outset of their excursion to Cygnia Minor, and how he hadn’t been able to figure out a reason for his behavior. It seemed like it should be fairly obvious since the guy was his best friend, but as far as Jim knew things were good with Jo and tolerable with Jocelyn, the alcoholism was on the low side, so what…

He must have looked as confused as he felt, because Spock said, “I assume you are unaware of the relationship between Doctors Marcus and McCoy?”

Jim blinked, and then the words made sense. “Relationship? Like, they’re _dating_?” He let out a startled laugh. “Holy shit! Go Bones! He hasn’t dated since… well, not since I’ve known him.” He thought of something and squinted at Spock. “Wait a minute, don’t I have to sign off on something like that?”

“You _did_ , you dolt,” Bones said as he came back over, the view screen descending from the ceiling. “I handed you the PADD and everything—you just don’t remember it because _you haven’t slept for a year_!” He flicked Jim’s ear admonishingly before murmuring, “Goddamn it, Carol, you better be okay.”

 

~***~

 

 _Okay_ wasn’t how Doctor Carol Marcus would’ve described herself or her situation— _fucked up beyond all recognition_ would’ve been apt.

She was crouching in the back corner of the Cygnia Minor community affairs building, in front of a communications station she’d rewired together with bits of loose metal and bootlaces after part of it got blown away. The front half of the roof had caved in and the rubble offered some protection from the near constant phaser fire and the fighting outside.

“Thank you, Uhura,” Carol said, and Nyota’s face disappeared from the screen, replaced a second later by a fuzzy image of the _Enterprise_ ’s Sickbay. She felt a wave of longing so strong it was like a punch to the gut, and it only increased when she saw the three men huddled around the view screen. She put a smile on her face that probably looked demented with the black liquid matted in her hair and the dirt streaking her face. “Hello, gentlemen. Can you hear me all right?”

“We hear you, Carol,” a shirtless and bloody Captain Kirk agreed, and if her own problems weren’t so dire she would have wondered what happened to him. The background noise must’ve been coming through well enough, because he got up from the bio-bed he’d been seated on, wide-eyed as he demanded, “What the hell is going on down there?”

“Six of the nine security officers you left with me are dead,” Carol said, her throat tightening just thinking about it. “The colonists went completely mad, they were just slaughtering one another, and when we tried to intervene…” She shook here head. “They have us backed into a corner, I don’t know how long we can—”

She was cut off as a deflected phaser blast struck the collapsed roof. She threw her arms up to protect her head and squeezed her eyes shut as chunks of debris were thrown around. When she opened her eyes again, Kirk had pulled out his personal communicator and was saying, “We’ll be there in less than an hour, Carol, let me—”

“No!” she exclaimed, gripping the monitor tightly with both hands. “Captain, listen to me—do not come back to Cygnia Minor! Leave us here, do not attempt orbit!”

Doctor McCoy was livid. “Carol, if you think for one _second_ —”

“Len, I love you dearly, but would you shut the hell up? The crops have completely disintegrated—”

“When did that happen, Doctor Marcus?” Commander Spock asked, and even his concern was palpable. “And what caused the colonists to react in this way?”

“It was about ten hours ago, not long after you left. Every field on this rock flooded with this black ooze—” here Carol gestured to the mess that was her hair “—and it spread more quickly than we could contain it. It destabilized ninety percent of the structures in the town and at least thirty people died trying to outrun it. Most of those were children.” She took a deep breath, trying to hold herself together. “The emergency rations we brought them didn’t get moved out of the way in time, so they were destroyed. There wasn’t an immediate panic over the lack of food, but then—it was the damnedest thing—a crate of supplies dropped from some sort of low-flying cruiser. The colonists got to it before I could tell them not to open it, we had no idea what it was, but it turned out to be food and they went _crazy_ because there was only enough for half the population.” She spread her hands. “And here we are—nothing like a bunch of scientists killing one another over pouches of dried mangos.”

The trembling of the earth beneath her must’ve been evident on their end, because it was Len who asked, “What’s happening to the planet?”

“I’m not sure—this isn’t my field of expertise—but I think it’s dying, too. We’ve been having hurricane-force winds, lightning storms, constant earthquakes—it’s destabilizing, and fast. That’s why I’m telling you not to come back, because if you fall into orbit around Cygnia Minor and it begins to implode, the resulting gravity—”

“—will suck the ship down with it.” Kirk’s expression was grim, and Carol hadn’t missed how pale he’d gotten when she’d mentioned the amount of food that had been in the crate. “The cruiser you saw, did it look like an old Starfleet model? Say a decade or so out of date?”

She was surprised. “Yes, it was one of those old interstellar transports that could only hold a few people. How did you know that?”

“Not important.” Kirk rubbed his forehead hard enough to leave behind white marks. “How long can you guys hold your position down there?”

Carol winced as the building took another phaser deflection. “A few hours, tops, providing the planet doesn’t give out on us before then.” She stared into the monitor. “Jim, I was being serious. If you come back here—”

“We understand the risks, Lieutenant,” Spock interjected, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. “We also do not leave our own people behind to die.”

Carol wondered if Kirk was aware of how affectionate his gaze was when he looked at his first officer. “You’re damn right we don’t, Mister Spock,” he agreed, the passion in his voice unmistakable. The captain’s intensely blue eyes met hers through the screen. “We’ll be there, Carol—I promise.”

Despite the war raging around her, she couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, Captain, even if it turns out to be a foolhardy errand.” She noticed that Len looked slightly constipated and teased, “Something you’d like to say?”

“Damn it, Carol—I love you too.” If Jim’s head had turned toward McCoy any faster his neck probably would’ve snapped. Len’s eyes were warm and his mouth was tight with worry. “Don’t die out there, okay?”

“I’ll try not to,” she replied, charging up her phaser. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make sure those boys don’t get beaten to death. Marcus out.”

 

~***~

 

“Scotty, we’ve gotta get going,” Jim said, striding onto the Engineering deck a few minutes later with Bones. Spock had gone back to Botany to continue running the tests on the samples. “Whatever plug you pulled for that stunt earlier, you need to put it back in.”

Keenser made a noise that sounded an awful lot like _balls_ from where he was perched, toolbox on his lap.

Scotty dropped out of a nearby Jeffries tube, goggles on his head and electric wrench in hand, looking frazzled and sheepish. “Yes, well, that might be a wee bit of a problem.” He crossed to a computer station and shoved the wrench at McCoy to hold while he worked. Diagrams came up on the screen. “Originally I disconnected two of the conductive tubes from the warp drive, here and here, which meant I was embellishing a bit in my report like you wanted. I got called away, and somehow—don’t ask me cause I don’t know—the conduit that runs from the warp drive to the ship’s systems got burned out!”

Bones clearly wanted to whack the engineer over the head with his own wrench. “Damn it man, we’ve got a real emergency now—everything on Cygnia Minor’s gone to hell in a hand basket!”

“Easy, Bones—not his fault.” Jim pried the wrench out of the doctor’s hand and held it out of reach. “Can you fix it?”

“Of course I can fix it, but since it’s not something I can access from out in the open I have to crawl around in these bloody coffins for twice the time!” Scotty looked like he would’ve been ripping out his hair if he had enough to do so. “I just don’t understand how it happened, is all! There was no power flowing through that conduit at the time, we weren’t using the warp drive!”

A shadow crept over Jim’s mind—not Khan’s, but his own. “Who else was down here when you left?”

“Well, that little bugger—” Scotty pointed up at Keenser, who shook his fist in response “—came with me, so he didn’t see anything. Some of my boys were doin’ inventories of our spare parts…” His eyebrows jumped up, and he snapped his fingers. “And Yeoman Rand was takin’ those Karidian folks through on the tour you set up!”

Jim hit the intercom button on the computer station. “Engineering to Bridge—can somebody pull the security cam feed from outside the warp core? I want to know if Lenore Karidian tampered with the machinery.”

“Aye, Keptin!” Chekov replied, chipper as usual. “Ah, what’s this… yes, it looks as though Miss Karidian made a detour while following Yeoman Rand through the department—Janice was engaged in conversation with Anton at the time. It is difficult to see what Lenore is doing, but I doubt it is anything good.”

Jim and Bones traded a glance. “Where are they now?”

“Janice left them in the mess hall, sir.” Pavel lowered his voice. “Are we having a problem with the warp drive _now_ , Keptin?”

Jim had known that after their initial moment of confusion, the crew would figure out that he was trying to force Karidian to make a move by manufacturing an engine problem. They were too smart and knew his tactics too well to think anything else, and he felt proud.

“Afraid so, Ensign—that’s all. Kirk out.” Jim released the button and looked at his chief engineer. “Mister Scott, get her running again—I don’t care what it takes, just make it happen. If we don’t hurry, everybody that’s still alive on Cygnia Minor is doomed.” He turned to McCoy. “You got a couple of tranq hypos?”

“When I’m going somewhere with you, always.”

“Good. Let’s go turn the tables on these assholes.”

 

~***~

 

The mess hall wasn’t crowded at the heinous hour of 0300, so Anton and Lenore were easy to spot. They were drinking coffee and talking at a table near one of the observation windows.

Spock came in via the entrance at the other end of the room at the same time Jim and Bones arrived. He brought with him two stern-looking red-clad security officers who remained by the door as the three of them approached the Karidians.

Jim plastered on a smile and took a seat, Bones and Spock flanking him on either side. “Mind if we join you?”

“Not at all, Captain! Please, feel free!” Karidian was in good spirits and jovially exclaimed, “Your ship is absolutely wonderful! Truly amazing how it all comes together, though I expected nothing less from Starfleet—you managed to get your hands on a real gem.”

“Thank you. She’s gotten us out of a few jams, and we think highly of her too.” Jim could feel a pressure at the back of his mind, like Khan was trying to force his way into his consciousness. It was getting harder to resist the temptation to just let the rage flow. He was startled when he felt Spock’s hand touch his knee, but grateful as the nagging sensation eased, allowing him to think more clearly.

“Lenore, did you enjoy the tour?” Bones asked, trying his best to sound conversational—usually he didn’t have the patience to dish out bullshit. “You seemed excited about coming aboard earlier.”

Lenore twisted a lock of her dark hair around her index finger so hard it went taut. Her eyes bounced from McCoy to Jim to Spock before settling on Karidian. She started to say, “Yes, it was—” but suddenly, different words poured out of her in a torrent: “I can’t do this anymore, we need to stop—”

“ _Silence_!” Karidian shouted, so loudly it made them all jump.

 _That_ was the voice that Jim remembered, the one that set his heart pounding with adrenaline and fear and had him looking around for exit routes. Spock’s hand on his knee gripped almost too tightly, and that combined with his pride was what kept him seated. Spock’s other hand was clenched around the edge of the table, and Jim realized as it began to bend that Spock was using it to hold himself back from attacking the man. He could probably feel the mess of emotions Jim was trying to wrangle due to his touch-telepathy.

On Jim’s other side, Bones made a sound akin to a growl and looked like he was seriously considering jamming one of his hypos in an inappropriate place in Karidian’s anatomy.

Karidian folded his hands and looked thoughtful. Finally, he came to a decision and sighed. “I believe you are right, daughter. We’ve kept this secret for long enough, and now it may cost those people on Cygnia Minor their lives. Captain, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, our identities are false. They were given to us by the Federation to protect us from those who would wish us harm. Not for something we have done, but for our names and relations. I am Anton _Kodos_ , not Karidian, and this is my daughter, Lenore. We really are traveling actors, but lately we have been attempting to cover the tracks of someone who does not deserve our fondness.”

Then he looked at them all and said a version of what Jim had known was coming since Carol had told him the design of the ship that dropped the insufficient supplies on Cygnia Minor. Still, it rocked Jim to his core, and that made Khan chuckle, amplifying his amusement using every altered cell in his body.

“I am the identical twin brother of Michal Kodos—better known as Kodos the Executioner—and can tell you with certainty that he did not die after the genocide on Tarsus IV.” Anton peered at Jim, who was trying hard not to puke. “You were there. You knew him—you know his face. So did your friend Doctor Leighton.”

“I did.” Jim looked at Lenore and the anger began boiling again, settling in his gut and his bones. His hands curled unconsciously into fists and the red curtain threatened to drop over his vision. “You killed Tommy, didn’t you?”

Lenore was verging on hysterical. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what else to do! He was getting so close, he knew too much—”

She moved to stand and Bones’ arm shot out, stabbing her with the hypo before she could try to flutter away. One of the security officers was there to catch her when she fell, while the other one kept his phaser set on stun and aimed at Anton.

“Take her to the brig, O’Conner.” The guard left with an unconscious Lenore and Jim leaned across the table, his face as cold and unreadable as a block of ice. Inside he was still burning, but Spock’s presence seemed to diminish the indiscriminant malice that Khan was so fond of. “You’re going to answer every question we ask honestly, and then you’re going to walk to the brig without a fight. If you put a toe out of line, if I don’t like what I hear, you will die—I’m to the point where I don’t care how this ends. Do you understand?”

Anton nodded.

It was Spock who asked, “Who killed Kevin Riley?”

“Not me, and not my daughter—we were on Cygnia Major at the time, so my guess would be Michal did it himself. From what I know, Riley would have arrived when Michal came back to the planet to check on the progress of the fungus growth in the crops. If he caught Riley snooping around and remembered him from Tarsus IV, he would have seen him as a threat. Was Riley killed in such a manner that he wouldn’t have seen his attacker?” When Spock told him he was injected with poison from behind, Anton added, “That sounds like Michal, coward that he is.”

Bones rubbed at his mouth and said, “So Riley gets aced, a couple days later we show up and Kodos isn’t there because he thinks his job’s done. He had to know the Starfleet response time would be faster than it was on Tarsus IV.”

“But he also knew that we have no way to kill the fungus he created,” Spock pointed out. “We could supply the colony with food temporarily, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. What Kodos didn’t know was that Riley had sent his data on to Thomas Leighton, who could potentially find a counteraction for the fungus.”

“And Planet Q was the same place where his brother had just opened a theater.” Jim felt his nails cutting into his palms. “And that’s where you two come in, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Anton replied, the lines in his face becoming more pronounced. “It was well known that the Leightons were frequent patrons of the theater, and the staff knew where they sat. I suspected that Leighton mistakenly thought I was my brother, which I knew would draw him back for more than one show. It was easy to plan, but we had no idea that you would be there. And once Starfleet got involved…” He shrugged. “Everything fell apart.”

“Why would you do this?” Jim asked, though he thought he already knew the answer. “Why would you protect a monster like him?”

“He is my brother. We’re family. What would you not do for your family, Captain?”

 _Oh, isn’t that fitting?_ Khan’s voice came through in its usual sonorous way, scraping along the inside of Jim’s head like a chisel. _I believe we both already know the answer to that one, do we not?_

With a smile back on his face, Jim said, “I have one more question, Anton.” There must’ve been something wrong with how he sounded, because Spock was staring at him like— _maybe the Vulcan just thinks you’re a worthy experiment to be studied under a microscope, Kirk, did you ever think of that? Of course not—you’re too enamored, too blinded._ “Where would Kodos go? Where has he been hiding all this time?”

 _Don’t you understand, Kirk? He will_ never _feel the way you do about him—he’s incapable of it! He can’t love you, no matter what he says to that woman or what his tears tell you._ Khan chuckled again, and it echoed around between Jim’s ears. _But that doesn’t matter to the incomparable James Tiberius Kirk, does it? Everyone thinks you always get what you want but the opposite is true, isn’t it? You’ll pine after him and let him hold you back from the greatness you could achieve, and when you die the next time you’ll do it alone._

“Well, that’s easy.” Anton looked relieved to be close to the end of his ordeal. “He’d go back to Tarsus IV—that’s where he’s been all along. After they found all the bodies and assumed him dead, they didn’t look around very hard.”

“Good to know,” Jim said, right before he hauled off and decked the bastard, knocking him to the floor and out of consciousness with one blow.

The remaining security officer wordlessly dragged Anton Kodos out of the mess hall, the doors shutting silently behind him. The big room was quiet for a moment, billions of stars passing by the observation windows without making a sound.

“So I guess we know where we’re going after we get Carol out of that mess on Cygnia Minor,” Bones said as he massaged one of his temples, eyes closed.

“Definitely.” Jim’s vision was wavering, the pain in his head becoming all encompassing. “Hey, Bones?”

The doctor opened one eye. “Yeah, kid?”

Jim turned his head to look at the doctor, a trickle of cherry-red blood running out of his nose. “I think… you should run those tests now.” He passed out, and was gone by the time Spock broke his fall and Bones called for a stretcher. He didn’t have the opportunity to wonder—since he’d been reading Jim’s emotions so clearly—whether or not his first officer had heard every word Khan had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... please don't kill me?


	5. part five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for heavily implied rape/non-con [maybe prostitution?], language, violence and gore, and minor character death.)
> 
> I AM SO SORRY YOU GUYS! This chapter is nearly two weeks overdue and I feel really bad about not updating sooner. I had a cookout to go to last Saturday, and then my week was insanely busy and it was really hot - those are not a good combination for productivity. :P I think this one's worth the wait though - lots of shit goes down, and there are feelings. Enjoy!

Jim woke up one morning on Tarsus IV to the stench of rotting flesh an inch away from his nose.

His eyes snapped open and he tried to scramble away, but only succeeded in skinning his palms and banging his head on the low ceiling of the cave. It was pitch black, too early for the sun to be up.

Jim’s breathing came in rapid gasps through his mouth until he backed into the sleeping, practically skeletal forms of the ten children he and Tommy and Kevin shared the cave with. Only when he felt around and found smooth rock instead of dirt could he believe that they all hadn’t been buried alive.

Jim reached behind him and found a bony shoulder that was bigger than the rest. “Kevin, roll over—I need the torch.” He got whacked in the nose with the plastic object before Kevin turned away from him and kept on snoring. “Thanks,” he mumbled, checking for blood on his face as he switched it on.

What Jim saw made him gag, bile scorching the back of his throat—if there had been anything in his stomach to throw up, he would’ve let it out. The source of the smell was Tommy, as Jim had feared once he’d gotten control of his fight-or-flight response, and it was bad.

The third-degree burns spanned the left side of Tommy’s face from hairline to jaw, and had done everything from melt away his eye socket to seal half his mouth closed. Part of his nose was gone, bones were exposed in some places, and his ear was badly damaged. What was left of Tommy’s flesh was turning into a sickly patchwork of green and black, and the outer layers of the wounds were falling off as they decomposed, pus filling in the cracks.

The stench was terrible, almost worse than the bloating, fly-riddled corpses that Jim dealt with on a daily basis, because this was his _friend_ and he was still _alive_.

Jim had attempted to clean the burns shortly after he’d dragged a moaning and sightless Tommy through patches of ooze from the crops and into the scrub brush. He’d had nothing to dress the wounds with, though, and so they festered—this was the result.

The only medical supplies on Tarsus IV were in the governor’s encampment, and Jim had checked that option out when he’d had a couple of minutes between grave diggings. Guards were posted in pairs at each corner of the fence that surrounded one of the only remaining buildings in the colony. The cavernous structure had been storage for fertilizer and farming equipment before the blight, but now it was where Kodos and his men resided. There was no way to get inside without being spotted, then stunned, and possibly killed.

Normally Jim would’ve tried anyway—it was _Tommy_ , for God’s sake—but he couldn’t leave the little kids and Kevin to die, and that’s exactly what would happen if he got caught. At least with him around they had a fighting chance to get some food and wait for Starfleet to show up.

Jim had one other idea, but it made him want to dry heave as much as Tommy’s infected wounds did. The last time he’d been invited for an audience with Kodos he’d been told that the barter system could get you anything, providing you had something to trade. Based on what Jim knew of the governor’s preferences— _damn it, stop thinking about that candy bar_ —he was pretty sure he had just the thing.

As carefully and quietly as he could, Jim made his way out of the relative safety of the cave and trekked the half-mile to the colony. The communal fires were out for the night, but torches and solar-powered lanterns within the rubble of houses made it possible for him to pick his way toward the biggest shadow on the horizon. He decided to approach the two guards who were stationed at the southeast corner of the warehouse fence—he’d had run-ins with all of Kodos’ men by now, and he figured these guys were the least likely to shoot on sight.

“Hey, fellas.” Jim’s footsteps kicked up dust. “Nice weather we’re having, huh?”

The taller man swung a torch in his direction. “What do you want, Kirk? It’s too early for this shit.”

“Think the governor’s up yet?” Jim stuck with casual, toed at a rock for good measure. “I’d like to have a word with him.”

“No dice,” the other guard said. “If he ain’t awake, I don’t wanna be the one that wakes him up. I’m dumb, not stupid.”

Jim forced a smile onto his face that felt as dirty as the rest of him. “Just tell him that it’s Jimmy.” He held in a scream of revulsion and bit out, “He’ll want to see me.”

The first guard mumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath and reached for his communicator.

A few moments later the gate swung open, and Jim was waved inside the yard. Then he was walking into the warehouse, and managed not to flinch when the heavy metal door slid shut with a _clang_ , sealing him inside the cavernous building. The only light came from some artificial wax candles sitting on top of the hulking shapes of plastic storage containers. From his last visit he recalled where the big table had been and headed toward it, his breathing sounding oddly loud to his ears.

“Mister Kirk,” Kodos said from somewhere to his left, and this time Jim _did_ flinch. “Or should I say _Jimmy_? Is that your clever idea of a codeword?” A chair creaked. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need something.” Jim didn’t like not being able to see where the governor was but didn’t let on. He cleared his throat. “Medical supplies—burn cream, antibiotics, dressings. And some food.”

“Ah.” Kodos didn’t sound impressed. “For the Leighton boy, and maybe your other little refugees, too.”

Jim went cold all over, goose bumps prickling his skin as his stomach dropped into his torn-up shoes. “How long have you known?”

“Quite some time now—since their parents died for the greater good and they were left orphans. I had hoped they would be able to fend for themselves—”

Jim’s rage surged: “They can barely _walk_ , you fucking—”

“They were chosen for a reason,” Kodos continued, as if Jim hadn’t interrupted him, “just as you were. I wish you were putting your superiority to better use, but that is neither here nor there. In exchange for the items you’ve requested, what are you offering?”

“Me.” Jim’s hands were shaking, and he was briefly thankful for the darkness. “You can have me… you know what I mean.”

“That seems… acceptable.” It was quiet for what seemed like a long time after that, and when Kodos spoke again his mouth was right next to Jim’s ear. “Shall we begin?”

Jim felt something jab him in the jugular—the familiar pain of a hypospray injection. His vision warped at the edges and his extremities and spine went fuzzy, like he had static running through his body. He fell with no more grace than a rag doll, and realized in panic and horror that Kodos had drugged him with a paralytic, so he wouldn’t even be able to _move_ while—

 

~***~

 

Jim woke up thrashing, a scream lodged in his throat and a combination of sweat and tears soaking his face. His pulse raced as he came back to reality, though it was getting harder to tell where memories and dreams ended and reality began. And was that really Khan’s doing, or had the damage from the radiation poisoned him in a way that wasn’t just biological? He had no way of knowing, no way of fighting it, and it was starting to get scary.

Jim tried to figure out where the hell he was. The lights were dim and it was fairly quiet. Since he was sitting on the floor and leaning on what felt like a computer station, he knew he wasn’t in Sickbay or his quarters. He got his breathing under control, and once his hands stopped shaking he rubbed his burning eyes clear.

Jim thought he should’ve been surprised to find himself on the engineering deck with the _DANGER_ sign on the vacuum-sealed door to the warp core staring back at him, but he wasn’t. In some weird way it seemed poetic—he’d finally lost his mind, and he was back where it all started.

Jim stiffened when he sensed a presence on the other side of the station, and he tried to stand up. Turned out that was a _terrible_ idea, since it made him gut-wrenchingly dizzy and disoriented. He groaned at the sudden movement and probably would’ve fallen back on his ass if somebody hadn’t caught him by the arms.

“Captain?” Spock sounded worried and his face was too, once Jim managed to open his eyes again. “McCoy and I have been trying to locate you—you left Sickbay without the doctor’s approval. Are you—” His first officer’s entire body froze, fingers digging almost painfully into Jim’s biceps.

Jim turned his head, following Spock’s gaze over his shoulder to the warp core chamber, and even halfway on the train to Crazy Town he understood. “Hey,” he said, bringing his hands up to rest on Spock’s tense arms. “Don’t go there, okay? In your head, I mean, we’re obviously already _here_ —Jesus Christ, I wish I could talk to you without sounding like a moron.”

Spock’s hands slid slowly down Jim’s arms until they were standing there holding each other’s elbows, and if _that_ wasn’t hysterically giggle-worthy then Jim didn’t know what was. He held the giggles back, though, since he was the _captain_ of a _starship._

Spock looked equal parts sick and murderous as he asked in a low tone, “Why did you come here?”

“I didn’t. I don’t know how I got here,” Jim replied, blinking as he realized that what he was saying was spot on. “The last thing I remember is passing out in the mess hall—wait, what happened in Sickbay? God, Bones is probably on a rampage.”

Spock considered that. “Doctor McCoy is… rather unhappy, but I believe most of his irate behavior has its basis in concern for your wellbeing.” He paused, dark eyes skittering over Jim’s face before looking away. “As does mine.”

He released his grip on Jim briefly, but when it became apparent that standing wasn’t in the playbook for the captain, Spock stepped closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. They were touching practically everywhere, and Jim thought he was going to faint or explode. Until now he’d had no idea that contact with somebody through two layers of clothing could— _wait, something doesn’t feel right_. He looked down, saw that he was wearing nothing but a Sickbay-issue cotton gown and cringed internally. _Fantastic, this needed to be more awkward._

“The distance you traveled without remembering having done so is suggestive of sleepwalking. Have you ever done so previously?”

“Not for a long time,” Jim said, and he sounded more like himself. The longer he was vertical, the clearer his head got. “Not since I left Iowa, anyway.” He took in the lines creasing Spock’s face and asked, “Why haven’t you comm’d down to Sickbay yet?”

His first officer appeared to be debating something. Jim had been around Spock long enough to know when his brilliant mind was pulling apart a puzzle, studying the pieces, and putting it back together. There was a part of Jim that wanted to be that puzzle more than he’d ever wanted anything, and another part of him was scared shitless of that happening, scared of the mess that Spock would find if he dug deeply enough.

Spock came to a decision, which was evident in the set of his jaw and the shift in his posture. Taking a steadying breath, he responded, “I have not informed Doctor McCoy of your whereabouts because there is something I wish to discuss with you, but have not had the opportunity to do so.” His expression pinched a little, and… was he _nervous_? “It is a rather personal—”

While Jim’s brain was hanging on to Spock’s every word, some animal part of him felt another presence near them. He spun around and executed a perfect windmill kick that he didn’t remember learning, the kind that would take somebody’s head off— _the kind that_ had _, it has served me well in the past_ —

“ _Bloody hell_!” Scotty exclaimed, the last syllable ending in a squeak that he would deny to his dying day. He’d barely managed to duck Jim’s hurtling foot before a fist meant to crush his throat followed it. He jumped away from that, too, and now he stooped with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. “Christ on a crutch, Captain—are you tryin’ to give me a heart attack?”

Jim was gasping too, but for a different reason. The pain in his head had just jolted from zero to sixty in a nanosecond and it was excruciating. That last string of thoughts hadn’t been his, it had been Khan, and now he was hyperventilating because _Khan_ had almost made _Jim_ kill _Scotty_ —

“Jim.” Spock had his hands on his shoulders, squeezing hard, trying to get him to focus. “You cannot allow him do this to you. He will only win if you let him win—”

 _Lies!_ Khan hissed from his corner, his presence fading the more Jim focused on what Spock was saying and concentrated on blocking him out. _More lies from his alien tongue! You have already lost, and if you believe him you are a fool—_

“— _do not_ do that.” Spock was speaking with the kind of conviction that Jim had once thought he wouldn’t have been capable of. “You are much stronger than he will ever be.”

Jim felt Khan recede from his consciousness like the tide after a strong storm, like the night getting banished by a bright sunrise. Suddenly he _saw_ those things in his mind’s eye, but the images weren’t agonizing to look at like the ones Khan chose to display. The presence that brought them to Jim was soothing, peaceful, familiar, a warm light to bask in before recovering and resurfacing to reality.

He sucked in breath when he realized he was literally _clinging_ to Spock and they had been gazing into each other’s eyes for the past minute or so. Jim was pretty sure everything he felt was etched on his face, and it was just confirmation when Spock made a surprised noise in the back of his throat.

Jim knew their minds had joined somehow, could feel it in his bones. Though he was unsure where he’d obtained the knowledge, he knew the connection between them like he knew space was dark and cold. It was sort of like the mind meld between Jim and Old Spock in the cave on Delta Vega, but different because Jim knew his Spock wasn’t even trying to do that.

Before either one of them could speak, Scotty said, “Gentlemen, while I can appreciate that you’re clearly havin’ a moment—and can I just say it’s about bloody time—it would be lovely if somebody would be kind enough to tell me what the fuck just happened!”

“I… am not sure I know, Mister Scott,” Spock replied after a beat, his eyes never leaving Jim’s. He sounded astonished and breathless. “Perhaps the captain can offer an explanation.”

“Uh… no.” Words were not something Jim was good with at the moment. He gingerly let go of Spock and turned to face Scotty. “I’ve, uh, been having some residual effects from the treatment for the radiation poisoning—I think I’ve got part of Khan in me. Sorry about…” He rolled his hand. “Y’know, trying to kick your head in, that wasn’t me.”

Scotty went slack-jawed, and then ran his hands over his head and down his face, giving both his cheeks a light slap. “Ooo _kay_ , I think I can probably let that one go—I actually came over here to comm _you_ , Captain, because—”

A deep, throbbing hum traveled through the floor and shook the walls as the warp drive powered up, the whole ship thrumming with energy. The bluish glow that was visible through the door to the chamber where Jim had died intensified and pulsed in time with the _Enterprise_ ’s heartbeat.

The Chief Engineer threw his arms up in the air. “I’ve restored warp capability! It’s a rather impressive patch job if I do say so myself—”

Jim grinned, grabbing Scotty by the shoulders and shaking him a little. “It’s brilliant as usual, Mister Scott! Can we make Cygnia Minor in an hour if we push it to Warp Eight?”

“You bet your ass we can!”

“Nice! Get ready, then.” Jim leaned over and pressed the intercom button. “Kirk to Bridge—Chekov, do you still have us on course for Cygnia Minor?”

“Of course, sir! Warp is available at your command!”

“Tell Sulu to punch it—I’m on my way up.” Jim let the button go and headed for the turbolift. “Come on, Spock—we’ve got a ship to run.”

“Uh, Captain?” Scotty interjected, causing both Jim and Spock to pause. “This is just a suggestion on my part, but maybe you should find some pants? I got an eyeful of your personals when you pulled that martial arts move earlier.”

Jim scratched his jaw and felt a prickle of embarrassment. “That’s… probably a good idea. Guess I’ll swing by my quarters first.”

 

~***~

 

By the time Jim and Spock _got_ to their joint quarters Bones was waiting in the corridor, looking stormy as he read from a PADD and slouched against a wall.

Once he saw the doctor, part of Jim _really_ wanted to turn and run away. As if he could sense that, Spock grabbed the ties on the back of his gown. That prevented Jim from exiting the situation unless he wanted to be buck naked in front of a bunch of ensigns.

Bones glanced up and scowled, shutting the PADD off. “Well, gee, _Commander_ , it looks like you found our errant captain. Might’ve been nice if you could’ve bothered to tell me.”

“I fully intended to inform you—”

Bones sighed and waved him off, but not derisively. “Don’t bother. Honestly, I’m too damn tired to be angry.”

Jim cocked his head—something was up, he just didn’t know what. “Why didn’t you use your medical override to open the—”

“Don’t, kid.” Bones peered at Jim closely, and then nodded like he’d just confirmed a theory. “I’ll be in to talk to you in a minute. Go in and get dressed—for God’s sake, your junk is hanging out. I saw enough of that at the Academy.” His gaze shifted. “I’d like to have a word with Mister Spock.”

Jim’s eyes went wide. “Uh… okay? Whatever you want, Bones… you guys talk.” He backed into his room, mouthing a hasty _good luck_ to Spock before the door shut. Once he was alone he shook his head in confusion, heading for his dresser as he said to nobody, “What the hell was _that_ about?”

 

~***~

 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Leonard muttered as he turned to face Spock, who was standing at parade rest with a questioning look on his face. “So why didn’t you comm me when you found Jim? And don’t give me whatever bullshit you had cooked up—I’ve known Jim Kirk for years now, which means I know every crappy play in the book.” He held up a hand as he thought of something else. “And do _not_ try to tell me that Vulcans can’t or won’t lie. Pretty sure you disproved that one before.”

“You do not present me with many options for explanation,” Spock mused. He thought it over, and went with, “I had a personal matter I wished to discuss with the captain that is rather important, but I had not found an opportunity to do so privately. I planned on speaking with him and then returning him to Sickbay. I did not expect Engineer Scott to approach us with the news that he had repaired the warp drive.”

Leonard crossed his arms, felt his eyebrows drop lower on his face. “Did you two get the chance to have your discussion before Scotty showed up?”

“Regrettably, no. May I inquire as to why you are so interested in this particular topic?”

The doctor snorted. “Well, never mind the fact that it’s my _job_ to be interested in my patient stumbling out of Sickbay after he’s passed out cold for an hour, managing to get to the place where he—” here he choked a little “— _died_ about a year ago, and then what, he’s just _fine_?”

Spock answered that question with one of his own: “What did your tests yield?”

“Nothing! Okay? They showed _nothing_!” _Calm down, McCoy, don’t start ripping off faces._ “According to every scanner and machine I’ve got, there is nothing wrong with Jim’s brain—well, nothing that wasn’t wrong already. I maintain his mother dropped him on his head as a baby. No idea what caused that fountain of blood he let out on the way down from the mess hall, either—there was no burst vessel, no signs of clotting or any other problems. And without taking a saw to his noggin to look for myself, officially I’ve got to agree with what the damn computers are telling me.”

“What about his mental—”

“Nope,” Leonard interjected. “You don’t get to ask another question without answering one of mine.”

“That is… fair.” Spock suddenly looked apprehensive. “What is your question?”

 _Crap._ Now that he was here, Leonard wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Do you… no, that’s not right. _Can_ you… no, that isn’t right either.” He decided he was going to pull a _screw it_ move his idiot best friend would be proud of, and blurted out, “Are you in love with Jim?”

Now _Spock_ looked like he was the one who wanted to turn tail and run, but his pride and that damnable Vulcan stoicism prevented him from doing so. Instead of denying it, he asked, “What about my behavior implies that I am?”

Leonard spread his hands so wildly he felt like he was about to take flight. “What _doesn’t_? You guys didn’t start out on the best terms—okay, you started out on really shitty terms—but you got past that. You were as vulnerable to that annoying, backwards charm that Jim’s got as everybody else was, even though you thought you wouldn’t be. And you work together, of course, but you eat together, you play chess together—hell, sometimes I think you tolerate him better than I do. Plus he’s as smart as you are, and let’s face it man, he’s not hard on the eyes.”

“Lieutenant Uhura and I—”

“You broke up a couple of months ago outside of one of Jim’s physical therapy sessions—rather amicably, but it was her idea. I know _why_ because Nyota told me, and even though I’m pretty sure Jim knows you two split, he won’t figure out the reason. And he’s gonna ask, so be ready to answer.”

“All right.” Spock looked like he felt awkward, which was awkward for Leonard. “Does the captain… have interests in the same sex?”

Leonard rolled his eyes. “Jim’s got interests in _everything_ , sex or species doesn’t really matter. I’ve never seen him tiptoe around somebody like he’s doing with you—he’d like everybody to think he’s just into one-night stands and that he’s shallow. I doubt the Khan on his brain is throwing off his libido, so I’m gonna say he’s probably as twisted up about you as you are about him, and he was that way for a long time before we got the call from Cygnia Minor.”

“You truly believe that Jim shares my… feelings?” Spock raised a skeptical eyebrow, but it didn’t mask the hope in his eyes. “Forgive me for saying so, Doctor, but you are not always perceptive regarding the emotions of others.”

“Ah, bite me—I’ve usually got one up on _you_ , hobgoblin.” Thoughts of another blonde-haired, blue-eyed Starfleet officer flitted through Leonard’s mind. “Ever since I started goin’ with Carol I’ve been getting more insight as to how people feel. Besides, Jim’s my friend, and whether he likes it or not I know him better than anyone.” He leaned closer, employed some of the menace that usually made Jim scream girlishly and hide under the nearest table. “And this is the point in the conversation where I tell you that if you hurt him, I will kill you. Painfully.”

“Understood.” Spock showed no outward signs of intimidation, but Leonard thought he’d gotten his point across. The commander’s expression shifted with realization. “Doctor?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you realize that while we have been standing here, Jim has most likely put on his uniform and utilized our shared bathroom, exiting through my door and make his way to the bridge without conversing with either one of us?”

“Damn. Probably should’ve expected that.”

“Indeed.”

 

~***~

 

Jim felt bad about ditching Spock and Bones, but after the ordeal on the engineering deck with Scotty he needed the solo turbolift ride to the bridge to clear his head. He had to appear competent (ha) and in-control (double ha) when he played captain, and he wasn’t going to be able to do that if he had a therapy session with McCoy beforehand.

As soon as he set foot on the bridge, Sulu turned in his seat and said, “Approaching Cygnia Minor, sir—ETA two minutes.”

“Excellent.” Jim stopped by the communications station. “Any luck on reestablishing contact with Doctor Marcus, Lieutenant?”

Uhura shook her head. “My guess is that something happened to the station she was using—I’m getting the default error readout. I thought I’d start trying to locate other working stations, maybe get a general channel open with the colonists.”

“Good idea, go for it.” Jim headed for his chair, but never got to sit down.

“Keptin, we may have a problem,” Chekov said, stretching out the _may_ so it sounded like a really long _me_. He was punching buttons at the science station and looking worried. “The preliminary readings I’m receiving from Cygnia Minor are not promising.”

Jim came over and leaned against the station, arms folded. “What’s the problem?”

“The planet’s gravity has increased significantly since we left, which means orbit around the system’s sun has also increased in speed.” Chekov’s eyes scanned the screen. “If these readings are correct… Cygnia Minor will implode in a similar fashion as Vulcan after it was attacked by Nero.”

Spock came onto the bridge with Bones and asked the question Jim couldn’t seem to force out: “How much time do we have until implosion?”

“An hour, sir.” Pavel’s expression was grave—this was a cruel retelling of a story they’d already lived. “Maybe less.”

Bones looked at Jim. “You think Kodos did this on purpose?”

“He’s in the business of weeding out what he views to be the weak,” Jim replied, “not destroying an entire planet. Wrecking it, sure, but not obliteration. The only things he obliterates are crops and people.”

 _Are you going to tell them what he did to_ you _, Jimmy?_ Khan whispered, seeming to be right next to his ear. _No, you could never do that—they would never look at you the same way again._ You _would be the one viewed as weak._

“Most likely our original theory is correct,” Spock said, picking up on Jim’s sudden discomfort but not drawing attention to it. “Kodos didn’t realize that the elements he synthesized from Tarsus IV would occur naturally in a similar format on Cygnia Minor, and the overcompensation is what is killing the planet. Cygnia Minor is beyond saving, but Kodos’ next likely target will be its neighbor, Cygnia Major. If we do not go to Tarsus IV and retrieve the original elements, I cannot complete Doctor Leighton’s cure for the blight.”

 Jim turned toward the view screen so they couldn’t see his face. “Don’t worry, that’s our next stop.” _That is providing I don’t get mind-controlled by a crazy augment first._

 _Oh, Captain_ , Khan admonished dryly, _name-calling is so beneath you._

Sulu gave them some warning: “Arrival at Cygnia Minor in five… four… three… two… one.” Whatever they’d expected to see, the image on the view screen wasn’t it. Cygnia Minor wasn’t the same world it had been when the _Enterprise_ had left nearly a day ago. Black clouds encompassed its entire mass in darkness that occasionally lit up with electricity. The whole ship rolled forward because the pull of gravity was stronger than expected; Hikaru had to throw on the brakes to keep them from nose-diving through space.

Jim couldn’t stop staring at the churning globe that had once been a planet. “What… _is_ that?”

“An atmospheric storm on a level that, to my knowledge, has never been witnessed before,” Spock answered, and he sounded as awed as Jim felt. “It is going to make transporting up multiple targets in different locations impossible. And without a viable way to contact those on the planet’s surface—” He looked at Uhura questioningly.

Nyota took out her earpiece, her frustration clear. “I can’t find another signal, which means there’s no way to tell those people to gather in one place.”

“It would have to be high enough for the ship’s transporter beams to penetrate the storm and still reach the ground, right?” When Spock nodded, Jim asked Chekov, “Any place like that near the colony?”

“According to these terrain maps, yes.” Pavel waved Jim over and let him look. “The colony was built in what is essentially a very wide, very deep bowl. If we could get the people to gather in one spot on the bowl’s edge, I believe Mister Scott would be able to beam them aboard.”

Jim punched the intercom button and relayed the problem and the possible solution to the engineer. “Can we beam down and try to evacuate the colonists?”

“From what I’m seeing here I can probably send you down okay, but I cannot guarantee that everybody who comes up will have all their molecules in the right places,” Scotty told him. “The chances aren’t very good.”

“If we do nothing, nobody has a chance at all—get ready to beam down a landing party. Kirk out.” Jim turned to Bones and Spock, trying his damnedest not to look as nervous as he felt. “I’m going down there. I don’t expect either one of you to—”

“Oh, screw that,” Bones said. “You need somebody with medical training to come with you anyway, and Carol’s down there somewhere—I’m not about to stand here with my thumb up my ass.” He patted Jim’s cheek and it felt more like a slap. “Besides, you really think I’m gonna let you have all the fun? I’ve gotta go get some crap together. Meet me in the transporter room.”

Jim smiled faintly as he rubbed the sore side of his face, and then he looked at his first officer. “You should stay up here.” He tipped his chin toward the bridge. “These guys need you.”

“No,” Spock responded calmly, “they need their captain, and it is my job to ensure his safety. Since our return is a rather delicate process, Mister Scott will be needed in the transporter room—I would recommend bestowing temporary command on Mister Sulu.”

“He was pretty badass the last time, huh?” Jim looked at Hikaru and spread his arms. “She’s all yours, Lieutenant.” He sobered as he fixed him with a look. “But I want you to understand something—if we’re not back within ten minutes of implosion, you leave orbit and contact Starfleet. That’s an order.”

Sulu nodded. “Yes, sir.” He looked at the captain’s chair and sighed. “At least I’m not bullshitting anybody this time.”

Despite the situation, Jim actually laughed on his way into the turbolift. He could’ve sworn he saw Spock smile.

 

~***~

 

When the landing party materialized on the surface of Cygnia Minor, Jim was reminded of the storms on Tarsus IV—brutal thunder, forked lightning, howling winds. The earth trembled under their boots, cracks splitting the dirt like spider webs. Running through the center of the crop colony was a river of magma, complimented on either bank by burning buildings and wrecked shuttles. The crops themselves were nothing but puddles of black ooze that resembled tar, lifeless arms and legs reaching from their depths.

The smell of decaying flesh and plants was more prominent than ever, and it hit them in the face thanks to the wind. One of Giotto’s men turned his head to the side and puked, and Jim couldn’t blame him—the scent was raunchy, with an underlayment of cinders and ash and ozone.

Jim had to raise his voice to be heard above the din of the storm. “Bones and Kyle, with me—Spock, you go with Giotto and Reynolds! We take east, you take west, and we meet back here in twenty!”

“Affirmative!” Spock touched Jim’s arm briefly as the wind kicked up dust and soot and tugged at their clothes. “Be careful!”

 _I hope you get crushed by a boulder_ was what Khan was thinking at the same time Jim was saying, “You too!” and moving off with his team, clutching his phaser like a lifeline and praying that that wasn’t going to be his last exchange with Spock. If nothing else—if they could never _be_ anything else—they were friends now, and Jim thought he would go crazier than he was if something happened to him.

He picked his way down the incline and into the “bowl” that Chekov had described, with Lieutenant Kyle and Bones close behind him. They all had their weapons set to stun but were prepared to change that if necessary—by now the destruction and violence was bound to have driven at least a portion of the remaining colonists mad.

 _If it’s us or them_ , Jim knew, _it’s going to be us_. And wow, it was probably bad that he was getting used to Khan’s comments on what went through his mind: _Now_ there’s _an idea I can get behind._

They passed the splintered, bloody boards of the supply crate Carol had described. Jim didn’t doubt that the food in it had been filled with fungus—Kodos’ idea of a good time was seeing whom was smart enough to figure that out before they stuffed their face.

 _Nothing I can do about that now_ , Jim thought. _Doesn’t make me feel any better, though._

They crept through the remnants of the first row of houses, picking paths around debris that kept them concealed in shadows but avoided broken necks. It was hard to see, so Jim was relying heavily on his other senses for information.

A skittering sound from behind them caught his attention, but it was too late. Jim and Bones spun around to find Kyle on the ground, his phaser flung to the side, with seven or eight screaming people on top of him, all faster and stronger than they should’ve been, tearing and kicking and biting—

Jim hit a couple of the attackers dead on with his phaser, but the blue stun bolt didn’t seem to have any effect. If anything, they just got angrier, snarling less like people and more like animals.

“What the hell?” Bones shouted, a note of panic in his voice—he was experiencing the same problem.

Jim’s pulse was pounding loudly in his ears as he shouted back, “I don’t know!”

Somebody had slashed Kyle’s throat, there was blood _everywhere_ , and now the berserkers turned their attention to his companions. Jim made the choice instantly, flipping the phaser from stun to kill, and beside him Bones did the same. With no hesitation they took down all of the attackers, burning phaser holes in their chests and heads, and this time none of them got up again.

Bones stood with his hands on his knees, breaths coming harshly—this was a far cry from _do no harm_.

Jim put a hand on his back and left it there, wiping the sweat off his face with his uniform sleeve. “We… did what we had to do. What the hell _was_ that?”

Bones straightened up. “Judging from what we saw, I’d say they’ve been altered somehow… maybe the food that bastard dropped?”

“I thought it would’ve been laced with fungus, but you could be right.” Jim swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. “These people… reminded me of Khan, just not as developed.” He looked at the pile of corpses. “It was like their minds couldn’t handle what their bodies were capable of.”

“You think maybe Kodos has been messing with more than just crops in all his spare time?”

“That would make—” Jim was cut off as something—a braided piece of insulated wire—looped around his neck from behind and tightened, digging into his windpipe and choking him. He dropped his phaser, hands going for the thing that was keeping the oxygen from his lungs.

McCoy’s phaser whined as it charged up. When he spoke, his voice was a growl. “Let him go right now, or I swear—”

The wire around Jim’s neck loosened, and he gasped for air as Carol exclaimed, “Len? Jim? Oh my God!” She held onto Jim’s arm, keeping him upright until he could breathe again. “I’m _so_ sorry, Captain—you can barely see anything out here, and when I heard all the commotion—”

Jim waved her off, bending to pick up his phaser. “It’s okay—okay then,” he finished awkwardly as he watched Bones and Carol kiss one another hello.

Doctor Marcus had ditched her Starfleet uniform for dirty civilian clothes, which had helped camouflage her. She was covered almost head-to-toe in the goop from the melted crops, and she didn’t have her phaser—instead, she carried the wire and a length of metal pipe strapped under her belt. When it looked like she and Bones were done, Jim asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Carol replied. “We need to get out of here—I don’t think we have much time left.” She looked down at Kyle’s body and added sadly, “We can’t take him with us—we’ll never make it without getting attacked again.”

Bones didn’t want to ask but knew he had to. “What about the three—”

“They’re dead,” she interjected, face twisting. “I’m fairly certain _everyone_ is dead, except for the people who ate the food from the crate.” Before they could wonder, she shook her head. “I didn’t have anything to eat and I barely got out of the community affairs building alive. They’ve completely overrun that area—it’s like a slaughterhouse.”

“Wait—the community affairs building is west of here.” Dread was climbing up through Jim’s chest and tasted bitter in his mouth. “Jesus, _Spock_ —that’s where Giotto and Spock went with Reynolds! We have to go help them!” He looked at Carol and said, “If you want to go back to the ship, I’ll tell you where the beam up point is—“

She flashed him a grin. “Fuck that. Let’s go.”

 

~***~

 

Bones, Carol and Jim ran as fast as they could, weaving around collapsed structures and lakes of black goo, dodging lightning strikes and the occasional rabid colonist. Sprinting didn’t leave Jim panting, and the bruises he’d felt forming around his throat from Carol’s improvised garrote were already fading. He knew that at one point in the journey Bones had scanned him with a tricorder and found that out, but right now they had bigger fish to fry.

Their fellow Starfleet officers were holed up behind the rubble of the community affairs building that Carol had been in earlier. They were holding their own at the moment, but were hopelessly outnumbered by colonists armed with improvised weapons and the occasional stolen phaser. Jim could hear some agonized screaming—it sounded like Reynolds was injured.

“Bones, Carol, cut a path around the back and get to Reynolds, take him to the beam up point,” Jim ordered, using his _I’m-the-captain_ voice so they’d know he wasn’t messing around. He was watching the patterns of phaser fire closely. “Try to get Giotto out of there, too.”

Bones was staring at him. “The hell are you going to do, then?”

“Spock’s holding the front by himself—I’m gonna help him out.”

 

~***~

           

When Jim was ten years old he discovered he had a knack for creating explosions. He had learned that by hitting the half-full fuel tank of one of Frank’s backyard junker cars with a bottle rocket. The resulting blast blew the barn sky high, along with everything in it—luckily Frank hadn’t owned the Corvette back then. The roof actually wound up in a neighboring field, and everybody thought it was a cracked underground gas line that caused all the trouble.

Jim was going to do something similar to that now, only with a phaser instead of a bottle rocket and an exterior fuel tank instead of one inside an old car. The tank was located near the only standing wall of the building across the street from community affairs, which was what used to be the research and development center.

That was where the colonists had congregated and were attacking from, usually in a row or two at a time—Spock was hitting his targets and keeping them back, but he wouldn’t be able to do it forever.

“Come on…” Jim muttered, waiting until the colonists who didn’t have smoking holes in them retreated behind the wall. Then he took in a breath, held it, and fired one shot.

The explosion was instantaneous, fire roaring up and out in a crescendo of light and sound, knocking the wall over like it was made of paper. Jim glanced back and saw Carol and Bones hustling toward the edge of the bowl, with Reynolds between them and Giotto following close behind. He’d bought them some time—now he needed to find Spock.

Jim didn’t want to risk being heard by any rogues, so he resisted the urge to call Spock’s name as he made his way through the rubble, searching for his first officer. Just as he was starting to panic, Jim rounded a corner and there he was, perched on a broken piece of concrete, phaser in one hand, the other clamped over a wound in his leg that had soaked his pants in green blood.

Spock blinked, and it took a moment for recognition. “Jim,” he said finally, relief evident in his tone along with pain. “I hoped you would find me.”

“I’ll always find you.” Jim’s joy at seeing Spock alive diminished slightly by the state he was in. He took a look at the wound—the phaser didn’t appear to have hit anything vital. He took in Spock’s pale features and asked, “You think you can walk?”

“I am going to have to attempt it.” Carefully, Spock got to his feet, wincing visibly before he knew he was doing it and tried to cover it up.

“Okay, okay, here’s what we do.” Jim scrambled over to Spock’s bad side and supported some of his weight, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. To move them both forward Jim had to put his phaser on his belt, which meant he wouldn’t be able to be on the defensive. “It’s not that far from here to the beam up point, but I can’t shoot anybody.” He grinned. “Think you can watch my back?”

“Even in my injured state, Captain,” Spock said, his phaser regaining its red glow, “I am capable of that.”

 

~***~

 

As it turned out, Jim and Spock managed to make it out of the colony before everything went to shit.

Spock had to put his words to the test a couple of times on the way, gunning down a woman who was foaming at the mouth when she charged them and a man that attempted to jump on their backs from a rickety-looking roof. Jim had kept them moving despite having to hop cracks in the ground that were more than a foot wide.

They were going up the incline to the beam up point when an earthquake hit. Everything began vibrating and the path started to slide away from the edge of the bowl.

Jim couldn’t keep his balance and Spock shoved him toward stable earth, which meant he fell several feet before grabbing onto the nearest rocky outcropping.

That was around the same time a bunch of rabid colonists armed with phasers started firing blindly into the sky, some of the bolts passing too close for comfort in their direction.

Giotto and Bones started returning fire, trying to keep those in the bowl distracted while Jim turned on his wrist communicator and attempted to climb back down the slope. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ , do you copy?”

“Scott here, sir! You’re cuttin’ it close time wise, laddy—you ready to beam aboard?”

“Lock on to our signals but _do not_ energize until I tell you to!” Jim could barely hear himself speaking between the noise from the shooting and the roaring in his ears at the sight of Spock dangling over an eighty-foot abyss. “Do you copy?”

“Aye—you best make it quick!”

“Leave, Jim!” Spock yelled, voice hoarse from choking on the dirt falling on his head. “Get out while you can—”

Jim slipped and let out a brief scream when he twisted his ankle, barely managing to stop himself from sliding down the rest of the way and falling to his death. He had his arm wrapped around a semi-stable rock and reached down with his other hand, until it was only an inch or so away from Spock’s white-knuckled ones. “Grab my hand!”

“Jim, you can’t support my weight!”

“Just do it!” _Please let this work, please please please_ —

Inside his head, Khan sighed. _I suppose._

Spock released his grip on the outcropping and clung to Jim’s hand for dear life, using his good foot to push against the face of the cliff. Jim gritted his teeth and pulled, the muscles in his arm and shoulder and back burning as he lifted with an incredible, impossible strength.

Spock was suspended in midair, but now Jim’s hold on the rock above them was failing—if they didn’t get out of there, both of them were going to die. He banged the wrist with the communicator against rock and shouted, “Scotty, beam us up _now_!”

They fell together, right as the _Enterprise_ turned them into ghosts.

The next thing Jim knew, he hit the transporter pad so hard it knocked the breath out of him. An instant later, Spock landed on top of him, crushing Jim’s chest briefly as they both struggled to acclimate. They were pressed together nearly seamlessly and Jim was glad for it—not like _that_ , but simply because they were still _alive_. He let out a semi-insane laugh and wrapped his arms around Spock, hugging him as tightly as he dared. Tentatively, Jim felt Spock’s bloodstained hand rest on the side of his head, fingers tangling in his golden hair.

They stayed like that for at least a full minute, and Jim looked up as Reynolds was being carted away on a bio bed with Carol at the controls and Giotto at her side.

Bones was standing over Spock and Jim with his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow raised. “You two done yet? I’d like to get this green-blooded idiot down to Sickbay before he bleeds to death.”

Maybe it was the adrenaline, but Jim was feeling extremely brave. “We are _so_ not done,” he whispered in Spock’s ear as he helped him up. “Not by a long shot.”

Spock looked at him wryly, with something else mixed in just below the surface—a fondness Jim had never seen before. “I doubt we ever will be.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL OF THE FEELS. Next chapter: THESE STUBBORN BASTARDS FINALLY KISS. (It's also probably not the last one...)


	6. part six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for language, one teeny implication of past rape/non-con, another of past child abuse, some violence/gore, and possible distortion of Starfleet regulations and distances between star systems. :P)
> 
> Hey guys! Thank you SO much for the comments on the last chapter, and for the kudos and bookmarks and subscriptions! I love you all! I'm back with chapter six - you probably would've gotten this a day earlier, but I went to see RED 2 on Sunday and there went some writing time. Fantastic movie by the way - I'm going to see The Wolverine this weekend, so I'm hoping that's good too! Anyway, back to Star Trek... we've got at least two more chapters to go, but there is a particular scene in this chapter that I like A LOT. You can guess which one that is. ;) (Hint: it's not the Jim/Bones bromance, hehe.) Enjoy!

Jim watched the destruction of Cygnia Minor on the Sickbay view screen, sitting on the edge of a bio bed with his busted ankle propped up on a pillow.

He had helped Bones get Spock from the transporter room to Sickbay, and then limped out to use the intercom in the hall. He made sure Hikaru got them far enough away from the planet so that the resulting vacuum wouldn’t damage the _Enterprise_ , and then he had Chekov scan the planet twice more for life signs. There was nothing to find—they’d managed to finish slaughtering one another before the destruction of their world. Jim thought of the kids he’d played soccer with on that first day, thought of them being dead or turned into crazed, bloodthirsty animals, and felt sick. He wished fervently that he could still get drunk, decided against trying anyway, and stumbled back to wait for Spock to come out of surgery.

Cygnia Minor had only lasted a few more minutes after Jim returned. It collapsed in on itself like a deflating balloon, its dying atmosphere giving one last brilliant gasp before dispersing. Pavel had been right, it _had_ looked an awful lot like what happened to Vulcan, and Jim was glad that Spock wasn’t around to see it.

The bed Jim was perched on was Spock’s, and next to him his first officer was still out cold from whatever kind of anesthesia M’Benga had used. The wound to his leg looked worse than it was—still, Jim was happy to see him cleaned up and resting.

“You know I’ve got six empty beds over here with your name on ‘em,” Bones pointed out. “Your neck’s gonna cramp if you keep sitting like that.”

“I’m good.” Jim took an offered bottle of water and downed half of it. His ankle throbbed and he winced. “How long is this gonna last?”

“Should heal up within the next couple hours.” McCoy paused, and then he added quietly, “Scared the crap out of me again, kid. For a minute there I thought I was gonna lose you and the pointy-eared bastard.” Even quieter: “Permanently, this time.”

Jim looked up at Bones and touched his arm. “Gonna have to try harder than that to get rid of me.” When the doctor put a hand wracked with tremors over his own, Jim’s eyes widened. He wondered briefly what had happened to the steadiest hands in the universe, but he already knew— _he_ happened. “I’m sorry, you know. I’m not sorry for what I did because I did what I had to do—both times—but I’m sorry that it… hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” Bones echoed disbelievingly. “It damn near destroyed me. If Khan’s blood hadn’t worked…” He shook his head. “Of course now we know there was a price for that miracle. I don’t know what you’re going through in that noggin of yours, but I can’t stand here and tell you I wish I hadn’t done it without being a liar.”

“Hey, I don’t blame you for what’s going on with me,” Jim said. He sat up straighter and looked Bones in the eye. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here—I’ll take what I can get.” He paused. “We probably should’ve had this conversation months ago, right?”

“Probably.” The trembling in McCoy’s hand slowed and stopped, and he snorted. “Figures. I hate you sometimes, kid.”

Jim smiled, giving the doctor’s arm a squeeze before letting go—he’d been around Bones long enough to know what those words really meant. “Love you too, even if you’re a cranky bastard.”

“Should I be jealous?” Carol teased as she came over, washed up and back in uniform, a couple of PADDs under her arm. “It sounds as though you have another admirer, Leonard.”

Bones looked like he was choking on his tongue, and that made Jim cackle until he felt something on the bed shift. He looked down, saw hazy dark eyes that slowly met his own. “Spock? You okay?”

“I am… adequate.” Spock thought for a moment. “I am fairing better than Doctor McCoy, who appears to have lost the ability to speak.”

Carol let out a rather unladylike snicker and clapped a hand over her mouth. Jim laughed some more—not noticing the way Spock looked rather pleased with himself as he did so—and Bones’ face turned a lovely shade of red.

“He’s fine,” McCoy snapped, and was suddenly hell-bent on examining the vitals on the display screen. “Starting to wish I hadn’t put your femoral artery back where it belongs, Mister Spock.”

“A squandered opportunity on your part, Doctor.”

“Yeah, yeah—be glad M’Benga handled your surgery, or your liver would probably be in your throat.”

The intercom whistled, followed by Uhura’s voice. “Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

Jim leaned over Spock and hit the button. “Kirk here.”

“It’s Nyota, sir.” She paused, as if debating her next words. Finally, she settled on, “We were all wondering how Commander Spock is doing, so I thought I’d ask.”

Jim allowed Spock to respond for himself: “I am well, Nyota.” The softened look the Vulcan wore when he was speaking to Uhura had changed minutely. Jim knew they broke up after the Khan thing, but he wasn’t sure why. “Thank you for expressing concern on my behalf.”

“You’re welcome.” Uhura’s tone was much warmer than the one she’d used when she’d discussed the reason for her shift change with Jim. “That’s good to hear. Oh—hang on.”

There was some shuffling, and then Hikaru came on. “Captain? It’s Sulu. Not to be a pain in the ass, sir, but we’re waiting on your orders.”

Jim shut his eyes briefly, trying to ignore the invisible spider that seemed to skitter up his spine at the thought of his ship’s next destination. He bowed his head, his hand involuntarily curling into a fist over the comm button. He could feel Bones and Spock and Carol watching him with varying degrees of wariness, their gazes like weights on his shoulders.

Jim knew what he had to do—that didn’t make speaking the words any easier. “Have Chekov plot a course for Tarsus IV and execute it. I’ll be in my quarters if you have any further questions. Kirk out.” He released the button and hopped off the bed, ignoring the shock of pain that flowed up his leg when he put weight on his bad ankle. He looked at Spock but couldn’t meet his gaze, wondered if he was doing that thing his mother was so good at, looking through someone instead of at them. “Glad you’re feeling better, Commander.”

Jim beat a hasty retreat out of Sickbay, and no one made an attempt to follow him.

 

~***~

 

_Khan was superimposed everywhere in Jim’s mind, like a film pasted over an image to disguise it. His memories flew by in a dream that felt more like a crappy flipbook than his life, but considering Jim’s track record a crappy flipbook was fitting._

_Jim saw Khan throwing his good grades away and hanging Sam’s on the fridge instead of Winona, he saw Khan taking swing after drunken swing at him instead of Frank, saw Khan hovering over him on that dirty warehouse floor instead of Kodos. The burned half of Tommy’s face became half of Khan’s. He was Uhura and Giotto in the bar in Riverside, then he was Pike, and then he was introducing himself as Leonard McCoy on the shuttle to Starfleet Academy._

_The list went on and on, to the point where Jim looked in a reflector and saw Khan’s face instead of his own. As disturbing as all of that was, he noticed something even more odd, something that Khan tried to conceal but couldn’t hide it in time—_

“You can’t change Spock,” _Jim said, and was there anything weirder than talking to yourself in your own dream?_ “Why?”

“I don’t know!” _Khan snapped. Wait… was this a chink in his armor?_ “Perhaps it’s all your pathetic lusting that does the trick!”

_Jim was going to protest, but then something else happened. A strange calmness passed over him, followed by a flood of warmth that made Khan’s presence melt away like ice in the springtime. The augment screamed and raged, but to no avail—temporarily he was exiled, couldn’t get a hold on Jim, couldn’t do anything at all…_

~***~

 

Jim opened his eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that he had been asleep because he hadn’t woken up screaming.

He was lying on a bed and staring at a ceiling that looked familiar but not quite like his, and _damn_ it was hot. Jim was mortified when he figured out his predicament—he was in _Spock’s_ quarters without Spock there. Jim was guessing that the sleepwalking was behind this, since he clearly remembered flopping down on his own mattress, but this was a whole new level of insanity.

He sat up, his black undershirt and pants tacky on his skin. Just as he was about to make a break for the connecting bathroom, Spock’s door slid open to reveal the man himself, and Jim nearly had heart failure.

“Spock! Jesus, I can explain—or maybe I can’t—” Jim took in his first officer’s appearance. “Are you supposed to be out here? You look a little green around the gills.” All that he could think after he said that was _oh my God, Jim, oh my God, you’re an idiot._

 “I fail to find the humor in that turn of phrase,” Spock said as he shuffled into the room, pain straining his voice. “I had to wait for McCoy and Carol to become distracted with Reynolds’ current state before I could leave the medical bay.”

“And why the hell did you do that?” Jim asked as he eased off the bed, his injured ankle twanging in protest. He came over and hovered near Spock, but didn’t move to play crutch—if he fell, though, at least Jim could cushion the landing. There would be no catching with only two good legs between the two of them.

“To find you, of course.”

Jim blinked. “Wait… you _snuck out_ of Sickbay?” His forehead wrinkled. “That’s… out of character. Awesome, but out of character.”

Spock’s tone was dry as he sat down on his bed. “Recent events and my actions during them would beg to differ, Captain.”

“Jim,” Jim corrected automatically, and then shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Uh… are you going to ask me why I was in here?”

Spock looked up at him and did the _I’m-about-to-verbally-kick-your-ass_ thing with his eyebrow. “I sense that you would not have a satisfactory answer.”

“I’m gonna say sleepwalking.” Jim sat down on Spock’s right side and looked at where the bandages wrapped around his leg were outlined through his pants—and wait, why did Spock get _pants_ when all Jim had gotten in Sickbay was a _dress_? “I’m just glad I didn’t wind up by the warp core this time.” He studied Spock’s features and tried not to show how it affected him when the favor was returned. “How much does that hurt?”

“It is manageable,” Spock replied. “Although I may have a different opinion after Doctor McCoy discovers my absence.”

“Don’t kid yourself—he already has.” Jim folded his hands in his lap, feeling a strange flash of self-consciousness. He toed at the rug with the bare foot that wanted to cooperate. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was it that you guys were talking about in the hall earlier? Usually the only time Bones gets that motivated is when he’s giving a lecture on the dangers of space.”

Spock tilted his head in a way that Jim had come to associate with amusement. “The doctor had… concerns he wished to express. About you.”

Jim suddenly felt hollow—with the way things had been going lately, the subject matter couldn’t have been anything pleasant. A bitter smile crept onto his face. “What was it this time? The nightmares? The manic bouts of rage?”

It was Spock’s turn to blink. “You misunderstand, Jim—our conversation had little to do with your current circumstances. It was an issue that I had intended to address several times before.”

His expression and words were so earnest that Jim had to believe him. “Okay,” he said, crossing his arms, “what’s the issue?”

For a moment, Spock looked like he had no idea what to say, and then he blurted out, “Nyota and I terminated our romantic relationship approximately six months ago.”

Jim wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with that information. “Uh… I’m sorry to hear that?” He scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t in the best shape at the time, but I remember that you guys stopped coming to visit me together.” He froze, a thought striking him—but no, that couldn’t be right. “Wait… what does that have to do with me?”

“It is part of a much larger equation, which unfortunately took you… dying for me to solve.” Spock was looking studiously at the floor, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “In those last moments, I would have liked nothing more than to have broken that door in half, because that was how _I_ felt—like I had been snapped in two. I love Nyota, but when I lost you… it was like you took a part of me with you, and she understood that. I told her that I could not remain committed to her when I felt so strongly for someone else, and we agreed that we would remain friends. She changed shifts so that our change in status would not effect our performance on the bridge.”

Tentatively, Jim reached out and rested his fingers on the back of one of his tense hands—Jim knew Vulcan hands were extremely sensitive, and he didn’t want to push whatever boundaries they had left between them. He was surprised when Spock’s hand turned over, allowing their palms to rest together in the lightest of touches.

Jim let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Now Spock sounded like he wanted to backtrack: “I will understand if you do not reciprocate—”

Before he could lose his nerve (when had _that_ become a problem?), Jim leaned forward and kissed Spock, closed-mouth and chaste. Sparks flew all the way down to his toes and it was even better than he had imagined it would be.

The kiss only lasted for a few seconds before Jim pulled away, overwhelmed and hoping like hell he hadn’t just screwed up one of the best things in his life.

Jim found that Spock staring back at him, features blank, and his heart felt like lead in his chest. Then Spock’s hands were on his cheeks and he was crushing their lips together in a way that had Jim groaning from the jump. He found his own hands sliding up Spock’s back and through his hair, chuckling when his pinky brushed the tip of a pointed ear.

Everywhere they touched was warm and fluttering with energy—passion didn’t begin to cover what was going on. This was surreal, Jim realized as Spock’s hand slid down to grip his waist, pull him closer. If it was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up anytime soon.

The kissing went from cautious and exploratory to greedy and desperate in about a minute. Jim went with Spock when he tugged him in, hooking his arms around his neck as he straddled his lap, making sure to not put any pressure on Spock’s injured leg. Jim was soaked with sweat and let loose a shiver and a moan when Spock’s hands slid up under his shirt and onto his back, and holy _shit_ , they were hot like brands.

This was probably too much, too soon, but Spock drove Jim up a wall and Jim was pretty sure the reverse was true. Modesty had never really been in his playbook, and neither was taking things slowly.

Jim attempted to chase Spock’s lips when they left his own, but happily gave up when they reconnected with his neck. He was debating whether or not to lick Spock’s ear—definitely leaning toward _yes_ —when the comm unit built into Spock’s desk chimed cheerily for a video call.

Jim jumped and said “shit,” rather loudly, and Spock made an aggravated sound, knocking his forehead into Jim’s collarbone. Neither of them moved for a moment, and then once Jim got his breath back, he asked, “Can you see who it is from here?”

Spock lifted his head, squinted over Jim’s shoulder, and muttered something that was the equivalent of _fucking hell_ in Klingon. Jim would’ve teased him about there being no logic in swearing, but Spock’s answer was, “It is Admiral Komack.”

“Ah, God—what does _he_ want?” Reluctantly, Jim moved away and stood up, balancing on his good ankle. “He’s probably calling you because he can’t get me, which means he’s gonna be even more of an asshole than usual.”

“I… am not going to dispute that prediction.” Spock smoothed out his hair before bending to open a drawer under his bed, pulling out a blue science tunic. “However, it is in our best interest to not look as though we have been violating seven different Starfleet regulations.”

“Yeah, yeah—cover for me while I hobble to my room.”

 

~***~

 

Jim came into Spock’s quarters through the bathroom a few moments later, gold tunic on and looking as put-together as he could manage. Cold water had done trick to extinguish the color in his cheeks, but if he had a hickey on his neck there was nothing he could do about it. He bit his tongue and stepped into the room, coming in sight of the view screen. He forced himself to walk normally even if it felt like a thousand bees were stinging his ankle.

From the sounds of things, he’d arrived at the tail-end of a ranting, sardonic summarization by Komack: “—and now he wants to take the Fleet’s best ship into the goddamn Tarsus system? On a _hunch_?”

“It’s more than that, sir,” Jim interjected, as Spock vacated the seat in front of the desk so Jim could take it. He maintained his usual perfect posture at Jim’s side, while subtly not putting weight on his bad leg. “I’m assuming Commander Spock told you about the detainment of Anton and Lenore Kodos?” _And didn’t mention anything about me going off my nut._

“Yes, and like I told him, they’ve been living under the Karidian alias since the aftermath of the incident on Tarsus IV—it was a precaution in case someone who knew of Michal Kodos’ involvement decided to look up his family.” Komack tugged at his bushy gray beard contemplatively. “That wouldn’t include you, Captain Kirk, would it?”

Jim’s neutral expression didn’t waver. “I don’t know what you mean, Admiral.”

 _Of course you do_ , Khan chided, his voice a chill that rippled through Jim’s head. _He’s accusing you of being a fanatic—do you intend to let those maggots go free after everything they’ve done to you, just because this old man says so?_

“You’re very close to this, Kirk, and since you haven’t pressed formal charges—”

“Pardon me, Admiral,” Spock cut in smoothly, “but pressing charges is out of our hands. Starfleet regulations only allow us to arrest an individual if they are suspected of war crimes. Though what both Anton and Lenore have confessed to doing is illegal, we cannot have charges filed until we reach a Starbase.” His tone was frosty. “I can cite the article numbers.”

“Thank you, _Commander_ ,” Komack said. “I’m well aware of those regulations. But I’m also aware that you have an acting company of one hundred people aboard the _Enterprise_ , and you’re holding its two leaders in the brig. Don’t you think they’re wondering what’s going on?”

“I’m sure they are,” Jim replied, when in actuality he had barely given the Karidian Players a second thought. “I’ve been busy putting together a ship wide announcement to update everyone on the situation, now that we believe we know who killed Doctor Leighton. The trip to the Tarsus system will only divert the Players for a couple of days, and when it’s over we’ll bring them back to Planet Q. Until then, they’re safe on the _Enterprise_.”

Komack appeared to be sucking on a lemon, but he dropped that line of conversation. “To the issue of Cygnia Minor—the reports I’m receiving say that the planet was a total loss. Is that true?” His looked stricken. “There were no survivors?”

 _Gee, there’s some humanity in there after all_ , Jim thought. “Unfortunately, sir, what you’re hearing is true. We were only able to rescue Doctor Marcus, and that was a near miss. The fungus has been altered—it appears to be mutating people along with plants. All the more reason for us to find the real Kodos and stop him from doing the same thing somewhere else.”

“And the way Commander Spock put it, you have to go to Tarsus IV in order to retrieve the missing biological information so he can make a cure for this fungus?”

Jim nodded. “That’s the short version.”

Komack sat back in his chair. “Well, I may not like it, but I also don’t see any way around it. You know the planet the best, Captain, and you’re also the closest starship to the system at the moment.” He leaned forward again, intent on getting his point across. “I don’t know whether or not Michal Kodos is alive and if he’ll be on Tarsus IV when you arrive, but I want you to understand something—if _anything_ goes wrong, the blame’s going to fall on your head, Jim. In fact, the whole damn mess might get pinned on you, and there’s not much I’ll be able to do to stop it. You’ll look like a crazy guy chasing a ghost and dragging his crew along for the ride… I just hope that’s not what you are.”

“It’s not.” Jim wished he felt as sure as he sounded, wished his palms weren’t sweating and that he wasn’t betting the farm half on science and half on supposition. “I can’t sit back and watch another planet get destroyed without being proactive first.”

“Then go get the bastard. Komack out.”

 

~***~

 

Jim took his own advice and had Uhura meet him and Spock in the brig a few minutes later. She set up a ship wide broadcast and Jim summarized the events of the past few days, omitting only his Khan-related problems and the grittier details of his time on Tarsus IV. Spock explained the technical side of things, and then Anton gave an unscripted statement to the actors, confirming the story and the roles he and his daughter had played in it.

After she turned the intercom off and they were heading back toward the turbolift, Uhura faced Jim and Spock and raised a quizzical brow. “Should either one of you be on duty right now?”

“No!” Bones answered for them as he stormed out of the lift, tricorder clenched in one hand. “First this one runs out on me—not like _that_ hasn’t happened before, don’t make that face Jim—but then Goody Two-Shoes here decides it’s a good idea to sneak out while I’m trying to keep Reynolds’ insides _inside_!”

“Blood pressure,” Jim reminded, and then yelped when the hypo Bones had had hidden in his other hand hit his neck. “Ow! What was that for?”

“I don’t like you,” Bones snapped. “Actually, it’s vaccination against anything that might possibly be on the surface of Tarsus IV that I could wrangle from the ship’s computer.”

“Uh, I’ve already been there—”

“But you don’t know how it has changed since then,” Spock said, before McCoy could open his mouth again. “A necessary precaution, for you and whomever you choose to join you in the landing party.”

“Well that sucks, because I don’t think he’s gonna be on the surface at all.” Jim rubbed his neck, and realized that Bones had _definitely_ been able to see that hickey when he stabbed him—oh well. “Tarsus is fucked up environmentally, and whatever Kodos is doing, he’s not doing it in the sun and through the sandstorms. My guess is some kind of underground tunnel system—I thought some of the caves on the surface were deeper than they looked.”

Bones threw his arms up in air. “Oh, that’s just fantastic—so basically we have no idea what we’re dealing with, again.”

“Pretty much.” Jim looked at Nyota, a thought occurring to him. “Speaking of which—Lieutenant, I was hoping you’d be willing to join Doctor McCoy, Mister Spock and I in the beam down to Tarsus IV.”

“Of course, Captain,” Uhura said. “Why me? I don’t think this is going to involve linguistics.”

Jim grinned. “It won’t, but you’re a damn good shot. I’d like to have you watching my ass.”

Her lips curved into a smirk. “You mean instead of the other way around for once? I’m flattered.” She was about to say something else, but the turbolift opened again and Scotty ran into the corridor, soaked in sweat and blood, his red uniform ripped into tatters. Nyota’s eyes went wide and she dropped the PADD she was holding, dashing over and putting her hands on his shoulders. “Monty, what happened?”

“ _Monty_?” Jim echoed, face twisted in momentary confusion. He shook his head—a nickname debate could wait. “Mister Scott, what’s going on?”

Scotty looked thoroughly disturbed. “I… was on my break, went up to the mess to grab a bite to eat…” He ran a hand over his face that came away red… and black.

“Is all this blood yours?” Bones asked as he scanned him with his tricorder, and froze when he saw the streaks of ooze on the engineer’s fingers. “Is that _fungus_? The hell, man?”

“It’s… in the replicators,” Scotty whispered, horrified eyes drifting from Nyota to Jim. “I don’t know how, sir, but everyone in the mess… they ingested it. I had to have security lock ‘em up in there and I couldn’t call you because of the ship wide transmission you were doing—”

“Did _you_ ingest the fungus?” Spock asked.

Scotty shook his head rapidly. “No, no—before I could touch my plate, an ensign at another table went completely insane and I left the food there. I barely got out with my life.” He was staring at Jim and clearly going into shock. “I’m so sorry, Captain… if there was something I could’ve done…”

Jim was afraid he was going to throw up. “Don’t apologize, Scotty—if they were already eating…” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and took in a breath. “How many?”

“At least twenty-five,” the engineer murmured, leaning on Uhura, as if standing was too much of an effort. “I didn’t get a chance to count, but that’s my estimate.”

“We need to get him down to Sickbay,” Bones said, worry clear in his expression. “Most of the wounds are minor and it doesn’t look like any of that ooze got in there, but I want a full examination.” He and Nyota steered Scotty back to the turbolift, and the doctor called over his shoulder, “Comm me when we get to Tarsus IV—we’ll be ready by then.”

“Okay, Bones.” Jim watched the lift vanish and turned to the wall comm. “Kirk to bridge.”

There was an answering _click_. “Sulu here, sir.”

“What’s our ETA at Tarsus IV?”

“Four hours and twenty minutes at warp five.”

“Punch it up to warp eight, the situation just got critical. There’s been some kind of incident in the mess hall involving the fungus, Scotty’s been injured—I’m going to go check it out.”

“Aye, sir.” Hikaru hesitated. “Be careful.”

“Sound advice, Helmsman,” Spock said, standing so close to Jim that their shoulders were touching. “We will endeavor to do so.”

“Kirk out,” Jim added as let go of the button. He leaned on the wall for a moment, head hung in a moment of weariness. “There probably isn’t anything we can do for them… but I’ve gotta go up there anyway.”

“I know. That is why I’m going with you.”

 

~***~

 

Jim and Spock found Giotto sitting in the corridor adjacent to the mess hall with two other security officers, and they all looked like they’d just been yanked out of a war zone. The doors to the mess had been purposely jammed, and were stuck in the closed position until somebody flipped the manual override. It was eerily quiet throughout the deck.

When they turned the corner, Giotto jumped to his feet. “Captain! Commander! I didn’t realize…” He glanced up at the comm unit in the wall over his head and sighed, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry. We’re all… shell-shocked. I didn’t even hear the intercom turn off.”

“It’s okay, Cupcake—understandable.” Jim glanced at the closed doors and felt dread pooling in his gut. “Mister Scott found us and explained what happened.”

Spock was showing some trepidation, too. “Were you and your men able to do anything besides contain the infected?”

“We were able to pull out three more people besides Scotty before they got…” Giotto put his phaser on his belt so he didn’t crush it in his hand, he was that tense. “I sent them down to Sickbay already to get checked out. It’s a real disaster—if they’re done… killing each other, we need to get a cleanup crew in there, stat.” He looked lost. “How could something like this happen on this ship? It’s… crazy.”

“Someone contaminated the replicators,” Jim said, “but I don’t think it could’ve been Lenore or Anton—this happened too recently, they’ve been in the brig.” He forced himself to keep it together, make it less obvious that these new losses were already eating at his soul. “Can you call for that cleanup crew, or do you want me to do it?”

“It’s my job, I’ll get it done,” Giotto said gruffly. “But thank you for the offer, sir.”

“No problem—that’s _my_ job, man.”

“Captain, we should locate the correct Jeffries tube and try to ascertain how the replicators were sabotaged,” Spock suggested, a note of intrigue in his voice. “If Anton and Lenore were unable to perform the act, then perhaps one of our guests is not like the others.”

“As usual, Spock, you make an excellent point. Let’s go pull up a diagram of the ship.”

 

~***~

 

In retrospect, Jim wasn’t sure stretching out in an enclosed space with Spock after the scene in his first officer’s quarters was his brightest idea. It didn’t help that Jim had to balance on the rungs of a ladder that was digging into his back. Spock was using _Jim_ as his ladder, keeping his feet on Jim’s thighs and resting the knee of his bad leg on his shoulder, which meant that his crotch was basically in Jim’s face for the duration. The whole thing probably looked hilarious to an outsider, but all Jim was feeling was clashes of grief and horniness—the only upside was that Spock’s close proximity seemed to be keeping Khan at bay.

 _And how are you gonna tell him about_ that _, anyway?_ Jim thought bitterly. _Oh, by the way, Spock, apparently you’re the kryptonite to my augment-brain! Yeah, that’ll go over big._

Jim needed something to distract him from his own weirdness—a downward spiral of depression wasn’t an option, so he went for talking. “So it looks like Uhura and Scotty may be closer than we thought.”

“Agreed,” Spock replied, moving one of the stick-on torches so he could see yet another circuit board more clearly. “If that is the case, Mister Scott is a very lucky man.”

“You and Bones didn’t look all that surprised,” Jim mused. He was silent for a moment, and then smacked Spock’s good leg in realization. “You _knew_! And Bones did too! Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me anything?”

“You signed the authorization form,” Spock pointed out. “Do you read them before you apply your signature?”

“I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have taught you sarcasm,” Jim said with a chuckle, but grew serious when he saw Spock’s expression change suddenly. “What is it?”

“I believe I have found the source of the contamination.” Spock was elbow-deep inside the wall of the tube, the circuit board dangling by a screw. “However, I do not think I can change the coding without assistance.”

 _Oh, good Lord. Is he_ trying _to kill me?_ Jim used Spock’s free arm as a handhold and essentially climbed the man, turning so that his back was pressed against Spock’s chest. Spock lowered his feet to the rungs of the ladder, and Jim carefully rested his own heels on top of his boots. It was almost like sitting in Spock’s lap, and okay, _that_ thought was not helpful.

Now that he was level with it, Jim could see that the circuit board was about the size of a loaf of bread, and although the opening was the same size it was twice as deep. Spock was holding open a little hatch that divided the chamber into two compartments, and there was no way for him to use two hands to recode the replicator.

“Which one is it?” Jim asked, not wanting to screw it up and turn all the milk into cheese, or something equally heinous.

Spock’s breath hit the back of Jim’s neck. “The third one down on the left,” he replied, and did he sound a little strained? That was interesting.

Jim pushed the right buttons in sequence and removed the coding for the fungus from the replicator’s computer. He double-checked the programming software, just to make sure there was no backup virus, and then helped Spock put the circuit board back in place.

Jim turned himself around so they were face-to-face, almost nose-to-nose in the tiny space. He felt like this was the kind of situation that called for whispering. “We should probably go talk to the actors and find out who did this.”

“I am running a kaleidoscope program on them now, to find out who has the background for this level of technological expertise.” Spock’s arms were braced on either side of Jim’s head, boxing him in. “It may not be finished yet.”

Jim was about to suggest what they could do with the next few minutes, but his comm beeped. When Chekov’s voice hailed him, he pulled it out. “Kirk here—what’s up?”

“Arrival in the Tarsus system in sixty seconds, sir,” Chekov told him. “And I had security gather all the members of the Karidian Players in conference room one as you requested—they are waiting to speak with you and Mister Spock.”

“Thank you, Pavel—we’ll be right there. Kirk out.” Jim put his comm back on his belt, and was pleasantly surprised when he felt Spock touch his cheek. He must’ve looked pretty bad, and leaned into his hand, eyes shut. “You know, we’ve got a saying for situations like this on Earth.”

Spock met Jim’s eyes when he opened them again. “What is it?”

“The shit’s going to hit the fan all at once.”

“Once again, Captain, a human colloquialism provides an accurate description of current events.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY'LL GET TO TARSUS IV IN THE NEXT CHAPTER, I PROMISE. The angst is strong! Also, how'd you like the subtle Nyota/Scotty? More Jim/Spock next time...


	7. part seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for language, some violence/gore, mentions of past rape/non-con, Khan being a prick, and possible inaccuracies regarding signal jamming and shuttle propulsion.)
> 
> Hey guys! I'm SO sorry this chapter is late, but real life got CRAZY (ie, thought I was going to need a new computer and my dad's truck died) and sadly fic writing had to be regulated to the back burner for a few days. :( But I'm back, and so are these guys! This chapter... UGH, I have so many Jim feels and I can't seem to squish them all in anywhere. Less Kirk/Spock action here too, but trust me, that will be back! Took me a while to put this one together, so I hope you like! Enjoy!

As it turned out, Anton Karidian had been keeping more secrets than just his real last name and his brother’s whereabouts. He had neglected to mention his two young mistresses that had backgrounds in engineering and were part of the Karidian Players. They admitted to what they had done, after Jim threatened to throw the entire group in the brig.  It took another half-hour for Jim and Spock to answer the rest of the Players’ questions.

There was a bad moment when Security was taking the two women away. Jim felt that familiar rush of Khan-fueled anger, a red haze momentarily clouding his vision as static filled his brain. He thought of his dead crewmembers, good men and women with families and friends, comrades who cared…  the urge to clamp on to a guilty woman’s pretty skull and just _squeeze_ was overwhelming.

Jim was afraid he would have done something unforgivable if Spock hadn’t been there.

“Jim,” he’d said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Stop. There is a part of me that would like to do nothing more than what you are thinking about, but then we are no better than them, and you are no better than _him_.”

Jim took a shuddering breath, like he’d just emerged from an icy lake, the air almost crystallizing in his lungs. He reached out and twisted his fingers in the fabric of Spock’s tunic, just holding on. They stood like that for an additional five minutes while Jim got his shit together, and then they got in the turbolift.

When they reached the bridge, Sulu vacated the captain’s chair and went back to his post. “We’re in orbit over Tarsus IV, sir, and we’re also the only ship in the area—if Kodos came back here, his vessel’s already on-planet.”

“Thank you, Mister Sulu.” Jim approached Chekov while studiously avoiding looking at the view screen, choosing to focus on the dashboard monitors and concentrate on not throwing up. “Pavel, what do we have?”

“I’ve run a full scan of the planet, sir—there are no humanoid life signs on the surface of Tarsus IV. Your theory about the cave system is looking like a good possibility.”

Jim turned toward communications, and was glad to see that Uhura was back at her station. “Lieutenant, were you able to pick up any radio activity?”

Nyota shook her head. “No, sir—no transmissions of any kind in or out. If Kodos is down there, he’s dark.”

“Great,” Jim muttered dryly. He cleared his throat and asked, “How’s Scotty doing?”

“Doctor McCoy seems to think he’ll live,” she replied, “which is more of a chance than everybody else in that room got.”

Jim didn’t say anything to that, because nothing he thought of sounded like it was enough. Instead he crossed the bridge and leaned on the railing near the science station. “Spock, what’s the status of Tarsus IV?” _I can guess_ , _and it’s not good._

“As you predicted, Captain, the conditions on Tarsus IV are not optimal. While the atmosphere can technically support life, the erratic weather patterns and lack of edible flora and drinkable water provide little means to _sustain_ life.” Spock looked up from his viewer to meet Jim’s eyes. “The area where the agricultural colony was is now a large swath of completely barren terrain.”

“Like a scar,” Jim said, and decided it was time to bite the bullet. He turned around and looked at the massive tan-and-white sphere that was the backdrop for his nightmares, pictured innocuously on the _Enterprise_ ’s view screen. “We’ll have to start there.”

 

~***~

 

“Captain,” Uhura said as she, Jim, and Spock rode the turbolift down from the bridge, “you realize that Kodos is probably setting you up, right?”

Jim hadn’t thought of that, but Nyota had an outsider’s perspective. That was something he hadn’t retained—the idea that Kodos had engineered this whole scheme with _him_ as the endgame made his jaw clench. “And, why would he do that?”

“I don’t know his motive, but I can see the pattern. Don’t you think it’s odd that Anton and Lenore did everything they could to protect Kodos, _except_ come after you? Even when they had the opportunity?”

“Perhaps neither was suicidal,” Spock said. “If harm came to the captain, direct action would be taken against them. They had to know that.”

“True, but _trying_ would’ve been in character, especially for Lenore. She’s an erratic mess.” Uhura glanced at Jim. “Plus, the timing is pretty convenient—the crops on Cygnia Minor started to fail, and Kevin Riley was killed, right after the _Enterprise_ went back into space.”

Spock tilted his head, following her line of thinking. “What sort of significance would you have to Kodos, Captain?”

Jim sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Kodos always had an… interest in me. I’m not sure why—” _oh Kirk, don’t start lying to them_ again _,_ Khan whispered, amused, “—but I think he thought of me as his equal, or close to it. I could play his game—tell him what he wanted to hear, act the way he wanted me to—but then I could turn around and do something unexpected. I was the only person on that damn planet that he couldn’t always predict, and that made me interesting.”

Nyota turned to look at him now, elegant brows pulled down. “You were a kid.”

“You grow up quick in a place like that,” Jim replied, smiling ruefully. “And I managed to keep myself and some of my friends alive while people were dying all around us.” _So it wasn’t all the result of sexual favors, then?_ That voice in his head was snide, but he ignored it. “Okay, let’s run with this for a second—Kodos must have expressly told Lenore _not_ to kill me, because that’s about the only thing that would’ve prevented her from trying.” He took out his comm. “Hey, Giotto? Are you near the brig?”

“Aye, Captain. What can I do for you? I sent the two men you requested down to the transporter room after I got the cleanup crew into the mess hall—they should be waiting for you.”

“Good work, Cupcake. I’d like you to ask Lenore Kodos a question,” Jim said, as the turbolift reached its destination—he was too involved in the conversation to notice that they weren’t where he expected them to be. “Find out whether or not her uncle told her not to kill me. I know that probably sounds weird—”

“No offense, sir, but after the day I’ve had, this is nothing. Hang on a minute.”

Jim clicked off, put his comm back, and looked up. “Uh, guys? What the hell are we doing in Sickbay?”

“Waiting for me, dumbass,” Bones said, strapping on a black backpack stuffed with his medical equipment. “Technically, you and Spock aren’t fit for duty with your injuries—yes, Jim, it’s just a sprained ankle, _I’m_ the doctor, you don’t need to tell me. And Spock, I don’t care about accelerated Vulcan healing—if either of you make a big deal about me tagging along, you are staying on this ship and you’re both getting a nasty write-up. Clear?”

Jim blinked, knowing better than to argue when The Eyebrow and The Lip Snarl were in action at the same time. “Okay, Bones.” He stepped closer to Spock so that McCoy and his bag could squeeze in. “What about your patients?”

“Between Carol and M’Benga, they’re all set,” was McCoy’s response. He looked at Jim for a long moment, his expression difficult to read. “ _You’re_ my patient right now, kid—and even if you weren’t, God knows you can’t go on an away mission without getting poisoned or lit on fire—”

“That was _one_ time!” Jim protested, ignoring Uhura’s snort at how high his voice rose. He was so caught up in being indignant that he didn’t notice his comm beeping. “And I had no idea that she could _breathe fire_ —I mean, who _does_ that?”

“Captain,” Spock interjected, his deft fingers removing the squawking comm from Jim’s belt. Though Spock didn’t actually touch Jim when he did so, the casual closeness of the gesture made Jim shiver, in a much different way than he did with Khan. “I believe Giotto may have an answer to your query.”

“Thank you.” Jim flipped the unit open. “So, Cupcake, what’s the verdict?”

“I asked her, and she started laughing like a maniac—which is fitting, come to think of it. When I asked her what was funny, she said that Kodos didn’t tell her she _couldn’t_ kill you.”

Jim went very still, and beside him Spock did the same. Neither Uhura nor Bones made a sound. Jim swallowed hard, reminded himself to breathe, and fought to speak using his best, most captain-ly voice. He was holding on to his comm so tightly his knuckles were white. “What did he tell her?”

“She said he didn’t tell her he didn’t want you dead, he said that she _couldn’t_ kill you—as in, wouldn’t be _able_ to. That you had changed somehow, become something different… something better than human, was how he put it.”

 _High praise for one such as you_ , Khan remarked, and Jim wasn’t sure how he managed to sign off without screaming. “Thank you, Giotto—that’s all. Kirk out.”

Bones was pale. “How does he know? How could he know about…” He trailed off, eyes wide.

“ _Nobody_ knows, except for us,” Nyota added, sounding just as horrified. “Not even Starfleet—we couldn’t tell them what we did to get you back.” She grabbed Jim’s arm, nails digging into his gold tunic. “How could he know?”

“I don’t know,” Jim said, eyes wide and maybe too blue to be his alone. “I have no idea.”

 

~***~

 

Even though he had been braced for it, Jim still felt sucker punched when the crisp air and whiteness of the _Enterprise_ was replaced by the cutting, dry dust and the ruins of the colony on Tarsus IV. It was dusk, shadows spilling left and right, but the Tarsus system’s twin suns provided enough fading light to see by. He’d specified the beam-down point to Chekov—on the edge of town feet from where his aunt’s house had been—and wasn’t disappointed. The broken earth and crumbled structures had aged less than him, easily retaining their appearances from yesterday.

The wind whipped through and Jim walked with it, following its direction like he’d learned to do many years before—that way the sand didn’t blow into his eyes and it was easier to breathe. Once they got around the lone standing wall of Aunt May’s house, the landscape opened up into a vast, rubble-strewn expanse that stretched all the way out to the hills. Jim heard Uhura gasp and Bones swear under his breath, saw Spock’s back go rigid out of the corner of his eye.

The old colony was a sight worthy of those reactions and more. Everywhere there had been a crop field there was a stretch of the black, tar-like substance that the fungus left behind, hardened into bubbled piles. In most places it had exceeded its borders and overflowed into the streets. Jim stepped on a piece and it cracked under his boot.

Over his shoulder, he advised, “Be careful—not all of this is dead plants.”

“Jesus,” Bones muttered, walking around a skull that stared at them sightlessly, half buried in the muck. “What a way to go.”

Nyota caught up to Jim, and he was surprised to find that the most well spoken woman he knew didn’t know what to say. “How… how many of them died this way?”

“By the time the crops went there weren’t many left,” Jim said, already tasting grit in his mouth. He picked his steps and she mimicked him, watching his face. He glanced at her and looked away quickly. “A few hundred, maybe? I’m not really sure. I was… in bad shape.”

 “This was an atrocity,” Spock murmured, fighting to keep his emotions under control as he took in the destruction. “Reading the article was one matter… seeing it is entirely different.”

Before Jim could respond, he saw a flash of movement in his peripheral vision and was reacting the instant his brain processed the threat. He shoved Uhura behind him and brought his arm up to block the piece of rebar that was being swung at his head. The hit hurt and Jim heard a dull _crack_ , but he was busy noticing that the attacker was a woman who looked as though she had once been a farmhand. She resembled the crazed colonists that Jim and Bones had encountered on Cygnia Minor, and with a start Jim realized that this _was_ a colonist from the same planet—Kodos must have brought a group with him, but how many? And where were the rest?

The woman’s other hand shot up, fingernails tearing the skin under Jim’s jaw as black ooze leaked from missing patches on her hand and arm. He let out a shout and grabbed the wrist still holding the rebar, twisting and pulling down at the same time. Something snapped—Jim actually _felt_ the bone break under his hand, heard tendons split—and she howled like an animal, trying to lock her talons around Jim’s throat.

One moment her head was there, and the next Nyota had blown it off with her phaser. The shot passed over Jim’s right shoulder, less than an inch from his ear, so close that some of his hair burned off. He pushed the lifeless body away and turned, pulling out his phaser and inflicting a deadly chest shot on the man that was attempting to rip McCoy’s face off. Spock resorted to breaking the neck of his assailant, who had gotten in a couple of savage blows to the Vulcan’s face before meeting his end.

Nyota shoved Jim forward and dragged Bones behind her, ducking through a partially collapsed doorway and into what used to be someone’s kitchen. Spock came in last, checking to make sure they weren’t seen and propping up what was left of the door to conceal them, at least temporarily.

“What the hell was _that_?” Uhura demanded, catching her breath as she holstered her phaser. “Did this bastard bring those people from Cygnia Minor? Are we going to have to slaughter a bunch of demented children next?”

“Yes, and I don’t know—I hope not.” Jim winced, touching the cuts on his neck, hand coming away bloody. He thought of the way he’d broken the woman’s arm before she died and shuddered, fingers curling into a fist. As much as he loved a good brawl, Jim knew these people weren’t in control of their faculties and wouldn’t have attacked them if Kodos’ fungus-fueled tinkering hadn’t scrambled their minds. “Is everybody okay? Spock?”

“I am relatively unhurt, Captain,” Spock replied, but there was something… off about how he sounded. Maybe it was the punch he’d taken to the mouth, and maybe not. He couldn’t seem to look at Jim directly. “Doctor McCoy?”

Bones had been staring at Jim since the entered the dilapidated building, and he didn’t seem to hear Spock say his name. With a shaking hand he took out his tricorder and ran it over Jim’s right arm—the one he’d used to block the rebar. He looked at the reading in disbelief. “Your arm should be broken—no, I _heard_ it break, but you didn’t even flinch.” The doctor wiped the blood dripping out of his nose with the back of his hand and then dragged his fingers across his mouth, appearing to be deep in thought. Finally, what he asked was, “How’s your ankle?”

Jim had nearly forgotten he’d injured it. “Fine.” He paused, mulling over the implications. “It’s _fine_. Christ.” He looked down at his arm as though the limb had suddenly mutated. Then he looked up at Bones, fear clawing at his chest—somehow this was a revelation even though they’d discussed it previously. “I’m healing faster… I was right.” He let out a noise that was less like a laugh and more like a sob, because he felt like he was coming apart at the seams. “So was Kodos—Lenore probably couldn’t have killed me if she’d tried.” Not for the first time, a thought occurred to him. “Maybe I should’ve just—”

The _stayed dead_ never made it out. Bones grabbed Jim by the front of his tunic and yanked him so close that their noses nearly touched “Don’t you dare—do _not_ say that to me, Jim Kirk, you fucking moron. There was nothing in this entire goddamn universe that we wouldn’t have done to get you back, so you don’t get to go and shit on what we accomplished.”

Jim brought his hands up to squeeze McCoy’s shoulders. “Bones,” he said, and that was all that was required. He was given a rough hug and shoved away again in the span of about three seconds. Then Nyota was punching him in the ribs hard enough to knock him off-balance. “ _Ow_ —okay, I won’t ask what that was for.”

“Damn right you won’t,” Uhura said, fire in her voice as her eyes bored into his. “Leonard is right—you’re an idiot, but every village needs an idiot.” Her expression softened as she added, “We don’t seem to function very well without you.”

Spock had remained silent and stone-faced through the exchange, and when he spoke, his tone was low but his words were as sharp as knives. “I was going to kill him.” The _Khan_ was unnecessary—they all knew who he meant. “I would have killed him, and I would have enjoyed it. I was not thinking of the crew or the ship, but of your body lying in Sickbay, and I… lost control. When we first met I also experienced an emotional compromise, but for a very different reason. Then I wanted you gone—now, I cannot imagine my life without you in it.”

Nyota and Bones didn’t look half as stunned by that admission as Jim felt. He had never expected to hear words like that from anyone—let alone _Spock_ , whom at one point he’d thought incapable of feeling. Jim had lost whatever innocence he’d had on the planet currently under his boots, but in this moment he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else, because he’d found a _real_ family, one that wouldn’t run away or reject him at the drop of a hat.

A family that Jim had died to save, and would readily do again.

 _You may get to test the mettle of those words_ , Khan murmured, with a chuckle laced through like a crude stitch. _They’re coming._

A second later, Jim’s ears picked up the scuffle of footsteps and guttural sounds, and when he looked at Spock he knew he’d heard it, too. The rogue colonists were far enough away for now, but their presence was troubling. Even though the building they were in provided decent cover, they couldn’t hide out there—staying in one spot would allow the berserkers to box them in, and that would mean death.

“We’ve got to keep moving, and we’ve got to try not to use our phasers—if there are more of them, the noise and the light will give us away our position.” Jim was whispering as he attempted to hail the _Enterprise_. He didn’t get his hopes up, and sure enough, all he received was static. “Can’t say I didn’t expect that.”

“Even if we could contact the ship, the weapons the _Enterprise_ is outfitted with are not appropriate for multiple targets on a planet’s surface,” Spock said just as quietly, a knowing gleam in his eye. “But that is not what you had in mind, is it?”

“Nope. Uhura, what sort of interference do you think Kodos is running?”

“Probably a dragnet out of a centralized location,” she responded, and it was clear she’d thought about it long before Jim asked. “But in order to be blocking our signal probes, that central hub has to be on the surface—last time I checked it was bouncing them back before they hit the ground.”

“So if we found the hub, we could disable it,” Bones said, “but how does that help the zombie apocalypse situation? Spock just pointed out that the ship can’t blast these people when they’re all over the place, and you’re right too, Jim—anything we do is just gonna bring more of ‘em to the party.”

“That won’t be a problem, Doctor.” Spock took a step closer to Jim. “You know where they are.”

Jim exhaled harshly. “I think I do. There’s only one building that’s still standing and big enough to pen people in so you could let them out a few at a time. That has to be what Kodos is doing, or they’d be fighting each other and not us.” He ignored the urge to crawl inside himself, hide from the glaring necessity of going back to a place that held such painful memories. “It’s a warehouse, probably still has a fence around it. Kodos might have guards—I doubt he could’ve kept expanding the cave system on his own, he probably brought them here too.”

“I doubt that he’s keeping the Cygnia Minor colonists and the hub in the same place—that would be stupid.” Nyota rubbed her forehead, leaving a black smudge behind. “If we attack the hub for the dragnet, those people are going to come after us unless we have a distraction. That means we have to split up.”

“I don’t like those odds,” Bones said, crossing his arms. “Besides, how do we even figure out where the hub _is_?”

Spock considered that. “A negative charge between the components of two communicators may produce enough power to provoke a visible reaction from the dragnet.” He glanced at Jim. “However, it would render the units useless afterward.”

When Uhura nodded her agreement with the idea, Jim said, “If you two both think it’ll work, we should try it.” He took out his comm as Nyota produced hers. He gave his to her and she went to work. “We’ll use these two, and that way when we split up each pair will still have one.”

Bones raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, do you have some brilliant plan under all that perfect hair? Are you and Spock gonna go Molotov this warehouse and hope you can run fast enough?” His expression shifted as he remembered something. “Jim, isn’t that where—”

“Yeah, it is.” Jim cut him off before he could finish that thought. When he’d told Bones the story of Tarsus IV back at the Academy, he wasn’t originally going to include the part about trading sex for survival items, but once Jim had started talking it had just flowed out. Now he willed his best friend to drop it. “It doesn’t matter, Bones—Uhura’s going to need someone to watch her back while she disables the dragnet.” He forced a smile. “And I’m a lot better at blowing things up than you are.”

“You’re full of shit, too, but we won’t go there.” McCoy made a gesture at Jim’s head. “What about Khan? You think he’s on board?”

Jim managed to not flinch as a mocking pain sliced through his brain. “He is if I say he is.”

“Oh, _that’s_ reassuring.”

“It may not be, but it’s what I’ve got.”

“Guys?” Nyota was finished splicing the guts of the two comms together. “I’m done, but I need to be off the ground for this to work.”

Spock looked up at the partial ceiling over their heads. “The joint where the back wall of this structure meets the roof may be suitable.” Carefully, he pulled the door open an inch and peered at the street. “I do not see or hear any colonists. Now is the optimal time to move.”

The four of them crept outside. While they were taking cover night had fallen, all consuming and nearly absolute. They hustled quickly around the side of the dilapidated house. After a brief planning session, Jim clambered up onto Spock’s shoulders and helped Uhura get on the roof. Bones kept his back to the corner and his phaser up, ready to shoot if they got ambushed again. It would give away their position, but with only one person able to attack there wasn’t much choice.

“Hold this and press the switch when I tell you to,” Nyota instructed, passing Jim one of the comms and then backing up a couple of steps, stretching the tangled wires between them. She crouched down, checked something by the faint light of the moon, and said, “Now.”

The places where the circuits had been linked sparked and fizzled as a whining noise filtered through the tinny comm speakers. The device grew hot but Jim gritted his teeth and hung on until Uhura motioned for him to throw it away. The two comms exploded in midair like a defective firework, and it was when they sent out their last boosted signal that a bright red light winked at them from a distance away.

“Two o’clock, five hundred yards or so.” Nyota took the hand Jim offered, stepping on Spock’s outstretched arm before landing neatly on her feet. “What’s over that way?”

“Only thing I can think of is the biohazard dump.” Jim hopped down off Spock’s shoulders as gracefully as he could, which wasn’t very. He immediately missed the close contact but forced himself to think with his upstairs brain. “They built the dome around it out of concrete, so it didn’t burn—he must have set up the hub on top of it.”

“Wonderful.”  McCoy eyed Jim and Spock. “How long do we wait for you guys to get in position before Nyota tries to disable the dragnet?”

“Give us twenty,” Jim said. He paused, the worry he felt momentarily pushing its way to the surface. He clapped Bones on the shoulder, looking him in the eye as he added, “Be careful—both of you.”

“You too, kid.”

Jim was already walking away, but he heard Uhura say to Spock, “You keep an eye on him, Commander—don’t let him do anything stupid.”

“What she said.” Quietly, Bones added, “I don’t think either of us will make it if he winds up in a body bag again.”

“Neither do I,” Spock replied, before he followed Jim into the darkness.

 

~***~

 

It took about ten minutes for Jim and Spock to get to the warehouse, using alleyways and dried-up backyards as shortcuts and hopping warped fences when necessary. They couldn’t see anything because the light was so poor, an echo of the conditions on Cygnia Minor shortly before her demise. Every time he heard a noise, Jim had to resist the urge to turn and hunt for the source—the lizard part of his mind knew that he would recognize a human sound when there was one.

The Khan part of his mind was stuck on a different topic. _He was telling the truth for once—he would have killed me and liked it. All that stoicism was gone as though it never was._ A chuckle. _Your noble Mister Spock even broke my arm in a similar fashion as you did that girl’s. The pain was exquisite… but you don’t know much about pain right now, do you?_

Jim was annoyed. _You get that I don’t give a shit, right?_

_Ah, but you do—if you didn’t, you never would have acknowledged me._

Grudgingly, Jim had to admit that was true. _Whatever. I’ve got a job to do. Somebody has to stop Kodos._

 _Stop him?_ Khan echoed. _You have to get to him first, and how do you plan to do that? I have to agree with the good doctor—if you don’t have some clever scheme up your sleeve, this is suicide._ He paused, his presence in Jim’s consciousness going garbled. Another force had emerged was pushing Khan away while soothing the damage he’d caused. _What the—_

“You should not engage him,” Spock whispered, their shoulders bumping together as they crouched behind the charred remains of someone’s shed. “It only increases his leverage.” He nodded toward the warehouse, silhouetted against the moonlight as it had been all those years ago. “Is this the target?” When Jim didn’t respond right away, he looked apologetic. “Forgive me if I overstepped a boundary.”

Jim let out a hoarse chuckle. “No… no, it’s fine. Thank you. After earlier I’m not sure we’ve got many boundaries left.” _And I don’t mind_. _Nope, that’s not scary._ He shifted his balance. “Yeah, this is it. There’s an industrial fence that surrounds the building—you can’t see it from here because of the shadows.”

Spock considered that. “Was the fence ever electrified?”

“Before the generators died.” Jim grinned. “I’d say you were a mind reader if it wouldn’t just be a bad pun. You think we can short it out, start a fire? That’d be one hell of a distraction.”

“A low-level phaser shot would most likely be sufficient,” Spock replied, a twitch of his lips hinting at amusement. “We have to locate a weak segment without being spotted, however.”

“All right, I can do that. Watch my ass.”

“Of course, Captain.”

 

~***~

 

“That’s our cue,” Uhura said around ten minutes later, when a fireball lit up the night sky from the direction of the warehouse. She and McCoy were taking cover behind the rubble of some kind of science lab, and she waved him forward with her phaser. “Let’s go.”

They approached the biohazard dump from behind, and could see that the concrete dome was marked with spray paint and looked like a gray cyst rising out of the ground. It was about the size of a single-car garage, twelve feet tall at its peak, and that was where a crude radio tower and some kind of computer station had been set up. The only way to reach the top of the structure was to crawl up a ladder that had been fused to its side.

“I don’t like this,” Leonard muttered, glancing around at the collapsed and burned-out buildings. Dried black ooze cracked like ice under their feet.

“You’ve expressed that sentiment before.” Nyota canted her head to the side, a prickle creeping up her spine. “But neither do I… something’s not right.”

Something shifted in front of them. A hatch that had once led inside the biohazard dump was thrown open with a _clang_ and two-dozen crazed Cygnia Minor colonists stumbled through it. Their war cry was already on their rotting lips as they raced clumsily toward the two Starfleet officers.

“Shit!” Nyota grabbed Leonard’s arm when he turned to go back the way they came, tugging him toward the dome. “This way!”

“Are you _nuts_?” McCoy half-shouted, but followed her through the mob anyway, blasting away the nearest ones with his phaser as they ran.

They scrambled up the ladder, having a tough time balancing on the rough but curved surface of the dome. Nyota waited for Leonard to reach the top and then turned her phaser to its highest setting and fired at the ladder’s rungs, melting them into the concrete and preventing the rabid people from following them. They howled and keened like coyotes, teeth bared and fingers turning into stumps as they clawed at the side of the dome in frustration.

“You think you can disable this thing?” McCoy asked over his shoulder as he kept a wary eye on the colonists.

Uhura’s expression was grim as she regarded the mess of cobbled-together wires and circuits that were blocking them from communicating with the _Enterprise_. “I’ve got to try.”

 

~***~

 

Jim was a teeny bit misinformed. Yes, the fence had been electrified before the blight on Tarsus IV, but apparently Kodos had gotten it running again via his underground power source, whatever that was. Needless to say, when Spock shot a highly concentrated beam from his phaser into the gap between the end of the circuit and the corner of the fence, the chain link didn’t _catch fire_ so much as _explode_.

The resulting shockwave knocked Jim and Spock backward several feet, and they wound up rolling into a ditch together, which wasn’t half as sexy as it sounded.

Jim lifted his head and spat out dirt, ears ringing, only to choke back a scream when he realized he was lying on top of a dead body, withered and partially mummified in its own clothes. They weren’t in a ditch—this was a partially eroded mass grave, probably one Jim had dug himself. He skittered as far away as he could, pulse pounding in his temples as his back hit Spock’s chest. Jim squeezed his eyes shut, felt Spock slide a hand under his arm and pull him into a sitting position.

“Are you injured?” Spock asked a moment later, sounding raspy from all the smoke. Gently, his fingers brushed against the spot on Jim’s neck where he had gotten scratched earlier—there were only faint pink lines and dried blood left.

Jim’s hand came up to grip Spock’s outstretched arm, and he wondered when they’d become this close, this codependent. “No,” he said, voice cracking. “You? Are you okay?”

“I am fine.” The ironic part of Jim remembered when Spock said something about _fine_ having variable meanings, but he couldn’t have made a quip to save his life in that moment. He watched Spock glance around above them and then ask, “Have you noticed it yet?”

Jim nodded. “No berserkers. They weren’t in there.” He dragged a hand down his face as he pushed himself up on his knees. “Which means they were probably—” Terror seized him momentarily as his eyes went wide. “They were probably in the biohazard dump—oh my _God_ , Bones and Uhura—”

“—made it to the top of the structure.”

Jim followed Spock’s pointing finger, relief flooding through his veins. The dragnet tower was glowing red like a Christmas tree, flashing every few seconds, a literal beacon in the night. That meant Nyota and Bones were (relatively) safe and working on disabling the hub. Even if colonists surrounded them, Jim knew they probably wouldn’t be able to reach the top of the dome, especially if the ladder had been taken out of the equation.

“Good,” Jim said, reaching up to take the hand that Spock offered him and climbing out as well. “Now, I guess we should see what’s in the warehouse—Kodos wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of electrifying the fence for no reason.” He looked at the building and his stomach clenched with revulsion. The feeling must have been strong, because Spock jolted and stared at him, concern in his eyes. Jim realized he was still holding Spock’s hand a moment too late and chastised himself. “Sorry. I… of all the crappy places on this planet, this one is probably the worst for me.”

“Perhaps Kodos is aware of that,” Spock said slowly, puzzlement pulling at his features. “I’m sure he is also aware of our presence by now. We need to act with a degree of care.”

Jim snorted. “What, you think blowing up the perimeter might’ve gotten his attention?”

He moved into the shadows of the surrounding ruins, Spock wordlessly doing the same behind him. Jim could handle this—approaching a target, keeping his phaser balanced in his hand, kicking down a section of the charred fencing and stalking through the barren yard, always scanning for threats. It was only when he looked up at the unforgiving sheet metal wall that was now against his shoulder that he had to try not to shudder.

An eerie silence surrounded them as they reached the big door at the end of the warehouse; the same one Jim had once walked through, alone and scared. He glanced around, looked at the door and then at Spock. “Do you hear anything?”

“No,” Spock responded, “and that is what worries me.” He waited for Jim’s nod before pushing on the lever-style handle, swinging the door open with the yawning groan of rusted hinges.

It was darker inside the warehouse than out, but Jim had been right about it being used for _something_ —there were no cobwebs, and the storage crates that had once occupied the vast space were stacked neatly on top of one another, out of the way. A pin could’ve dropped in the place and it would’ve sounded like a brass band, so when the door shut behind them, yeah, Jim jumped a little. He flashed back to himself, aching and skinny and hungry, standing in this spot, with nothing but tattered clothes to hide his desperation and shame.

Since the windows were near the ceiling, it was safe for them to use the charges in their phasers as flashlights. Jim clicked his on and peered around at the rows of crates that had once been full of things that seemed more valuable than all the dilithium in the universe— _wait_. Jim shone the light from his weapon on the warehouse floor and was surprised to see a blue glimmer sparkle back at him, tiny crystals scattered on the concrete. _Dilithium_ crystals, to be exact—they had to have been exhausted from Kodos’ shuttle!

Spock noticed it at the same time Jim did, and cast his beam further down the length of the building. There, at the other end, was the shuttlecraft that Carol had described when Jim prompted her. “Captain, that must be the ship that Doctor Marcus saw on Cygnia Minor.”

“It is indeed, Mister Spock!” a loud voice declared, echoing off the walls and sucking the breath out of Jim’s lungs. A sweat broke out on his forehead and a tremor coursed through his hands once before he stilled them, phaser raised as he tried to find the source of the sound. This time he was sure, there was no mistaking it, no imitations— _that_ was Michal Kodos. “Isn’t she a beauty? Nothing like your _Enterprise_ , of course, but she gets the job done.”

“You probably stole her from a museum in another star system,” Jim said dryly, sounding far more confident than he felt. “Pretty sure if I had seen a shuttle the last time I was here I would’ve tried to hotwire it.”

“You would have,” Kodos agreed readily, still not revealing his location. Both Jim and Spock were scanning every shadow looking for him, and he probably found that amusing. “But there would have been no way for you to save yourself and your friends—you couldn’t go back for them _and_ steal a shuttle. But one or the other wouldn’t do for James Kirk, oh no! You were determined to be a hero! I never understood it myself—you were so much better than your peers—but that was just how you operated.”

“It still is,” Jim said, sparing one glance at Spock, who could have been a glacier with a gun in his hand. “But you’re wrong about one thing—I don’t care about being a hero.”

Chuckling ensued, but this time it was much closer—specifically, right behind them. “Good. It will be _so_ nice to take you down a peg. Welcome back.”

Jim heard the _crack_ as somebody hit Spock over the head with a stun baton, and barely had time to shout his name before he was on the receiving end of a blow and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES I KNOW I LEFT IT THERE I AM A VERY BAD PERSON


	8. part eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for direct references to past rape/non-con, language, graphic violence and gore, Kodos being a nasty old fuck, and the spitting of molars.)
> 
> I AM SO SORRY YOU GUYS. My iMac started a slow downward spiral to the recycler back in August and it took a long time to get the money for a new computer. I couldn't use my old one for more than fifteen minutes at a time, which isn't conducive to writing. I'm back on a PC - a Lenovo - and I have to say I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. Again, SORRY this took so long, you guys are the best readers and I felt terrible for not being able to update! Now that I've said that, however... this chapter is pretty damn good and I'm glad I had time to work it out. It's not super long but I hope you guys enjoy it!

Jim woke to total darkness and a drumming pain behind his eyes. He groaned shifting from lying on his side to his back, bringing an arm that felt as heavy as a sandbag up so he could touch his wounded skull. He had a bump the size of a small country and his fingers came away sticky with blood, but he didn’t feel a crack. That knowledge didn’t lessen the agony dancing on his nerves, though.

The first coherent thought he snatched out of the jumble was _where’s Spock?_ Carefully, Jim probed the space around him, and concluded that he was locked in one of the shipping containers they’d seen in the warehouse. He sensed movement near his feet and sat up, banging his head on the top of the crate and seeing stars. He reached for his phaser instinctively and wasn’t surprised to find that he’d been disarmed. “Spock? Is that you?”

His first officer made a noise of discomfort, which filled Jim with equal parts relief and rage. “Yes, Captain. I… believe I have a concussion.” He paused. “We are in a container that appears to be travelling independently.”

“Probably on a conveyer belt,” Jim agreed, shuffling to Spock’s side, gingerly maneuvering them both into a sitting position. The blackness was no longer absolute as Jim’s eyes adjusted. Cracks in the boards allowed in air and some kind of artificial light. It was cooler where they were than it had been on the surface of Tarsus IV, and he found himself pressing against Spock for warmth—his first officer also didn’t have his weapon. “Kodos is moving us underground, so even if Bones and Uhura deactivate the dragnet, they’re gonna have a hard time figuring out where we are. He had guards in the other crates—that’s how they got the jump on us.”

Khan’s laughter joined the thumping bass in Jim’s head. He tried to concentrate on the tingling sensation he felt where he and Spock touched, shoulders to legs in the tiny space.

“Perhaps we can return the favor,” Spock said, his breath ghosting against Jim’s cheek. “The end of the crate that you came from is the one that opens?” When Jim nodded, he continued, “Then our opportunity for attack will be when they drag us out.”

“It’ll be a short window,” Jim replied. He added without thinking about it, “He’s going to drug us with a paralytic toxin, so we won’t be able to fight back.”

Spock was quiet for a moment. “You are certain,” he said, tone deceptively neutral. “Why?”

Jim’s mouth was dry and his lizard brain was screaming _no no no_ , yet he knew he had to tell Spock the truth. Kodos would definitely use it to his advantage if he didn’t, but if Spock knew ahead of time, even if it destroyed their relationship, maybe it would give them an edge. Jim tried to force the words out, but found that he was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering, and it had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. He was too afraid to speak, and he cursed his own weakness.

“You have no reason to fear me, Jim,” Spock murmured, touching the back of Jim’s hand lightly. When Jim didn’t pull away, Spock took his hand in his own. “Whatever it is, you can tell me, if that is what you wish.”

 _I wish this wasn’t happening_ , Jim thought, and then shoved it away because thinking that had never before helped him.

“I can’t tell you,” he whispered, the connection between them humming with sudden energy. He brought Spock’s hand to his face. “But I can show you.”

To his credit, Spock didn’t ask Jim how he knew about Vulcan mind melds, and he didn’t make a big moral argument, either. Somehow, Jim knew he could sense that this wasn’t uncharted territory for either of them, and not just because of their tentative mental bond. Maybe he recognized that their alternate selves had been here too.

Spock moved his fingers into the correct positions and looked Jim in the eye. “All right. Are you ready?”

In that particular instance, staring back at Spock was the hardest thing Jim had ever done. “Yeah, but watch out for Khan—he’s a sneaky bastard. Last thing we need is him inside your head, too.” Jim braced for the free-falling vacuum he’d experienced before, but trusting _his_ Spock a whole lot more than he had the other. “Go for it.”

 

~***~

 

Stepping into Jim’s mind was akin to flying too close to the sun. Logically Spock knew that comparison was ridiculous, but it didn’t _feel_ that way, and with Jim, feelings always seemed to win. It was as if he were getting scorched by brilliant fire that spanned in every direction, and each of the millions of embers in that fire was a sliver of memory, or a dream, or just Jim’s _life_ , through his eyes.

At first Spock was overwhelmed, and though he tried not to view anything that wasn’t relevant, a battery of noise and vision assaulted his consciousness.

There was the sting of Jimmy Kirk’s rapidly bruising cheek as his brother hightailed away from him through a cornfield. Catching lightning bugs in jars and watching his mother laugh. The sight of a massive hand, in front of him for an instant before it formed a fist and punched him in the mouth, blood running down his chin, accompanied by drunken laughter and terrible words. Finding a whole patch of four-leaf clover and naively hoping they would change something. The reflection of an ostracized Jim Kirk, with eyes as blue as the Iowa sky, staring at himself in the mirror and wondering what he could do differently, how he could make people like him. The hunger was the worst part—a constant, nagging overtone, bad on Earth and unbearable on Tarsus IV, but at least on Earth stealing food had been an option. Frank had never kept anything around except beer and chips, and it seemed like Jim’s ribs always stood out under his skin—

All of this took place in an instant that seemed like it lasted years, and when he had a chance Spock forced it away, putting up a noise buffer between himself and Jim. Then the embers faded a bit, receding to the edges of his awareness so abruptly he almost missed them once they were gone. He could think clearly now, though, which was essential to his task.

 _Sorry_ , Jim said, his mental voice warm and a little uncertain. _I’ve got a lot of crap in here. Let me see if I can find… it._

Part of Spock wanted to ask what “it” was, but he refrained—the action would be redundant if he was going to be shown. It was silent for several moments, the once-swirling embers still and gray. The heat that had surrounded Spock cooled to a chill and though he didn’t have a body here, he shivered. _Jim? Did you—_

Something came hurtling across the hazy expanse in front of Spock, black and amorphous, like tar, or the byproduct of the fungus. It was heading straight for him, but he found he couldn’t move, couldn’t look away as the black spot grew in size, until it consumed his vision and plunged him directly into a nightmare.

 

~***~

 

Jim felt the moment when Spock comprehended what he was seeing, secondhand horror and disbelief washing over him like scalding water. He winced, wishing he hadn’t just let fly with that memory—unsurprisingly, it was a hard for him to hang on for very long without wanting to claw his own skin off. He was putting out waves of disgust and hatred involuntarily, but managed to hide the fear that was clouding his consciousness, the fear that Spock would feel those same things about him now that he knew what had happened.

In the scene, Kodos was cleaning himself up and strolling away, adding over his shoulder, “That drug should wear off in about an hour. I expect you to be gone by then—but do remember to come back tomorrow, Jimmy.” The memory ended when Jim passed out, which was mere seconds after those parting words.

Spock had maintained radio silence through his viewing of the ordeal and Jim had tried for patience, but that had never been his strong suit—if they were done, he needed to know. _Are you—_

Before he could finish that thought, Jim’s consciousness tilted crazily on its axis, horizons warping as he and Spock were both rattled around like marbles in a bag. They slammed together and something held them there, another force that was putting on too much pressure. A gloom descended over them, thick and smoky, casting rippling shadows everywhere. Only one person could be the cause.

 _Khan_ , Spock whispered knowingly, and got an echoing, booming chuckle in response.

The floor fell away, and suddenly the _Enterprise_ was hurtling through Earth’s atmosphere on a collision course for the land below. There, Spock’s carefully managed terror rose as he strapped himself into the captain’s chair, while Jim signed his own death warrant and punched Scotty in the face, all of it overlaid with Khan’s rage, his cold and calculated plan to hunt the whole crew down and do whatever he damned well pleased to get his revenge. Burning pain, pain like nothing Jim had ever felt, that pain magnified by Spock’s tears and the realization of what he felt for the Vulcan, the longing for everything they could’ve been—

 _That_ was the strand of reality Jim had been looking for, and he snatched it out of the air. Khan made a move to stop him, tried to get between him and Spock instead of crushing them, but he was too late—Spock had gotten the idea and added his mind power to Jim’s, the strand twining with others and thickening into a rope. They climbed and dodged Khan’s attempt to drag them down, breaking back into the physical world with a blinding blast of light.

 

~***~

 

Jim and Spock both came back to the interior of the crate with gasps and shudders, the stress and the residual emotions from the mind meld still fresh. Spock remained where he had been, while Jim had unconsciously pushed himself into the nearest corner, knees drawn up to his chest protectively, as if he were instinctively waiting for hostility.

Jim expected Khan to rip him a mental new one for bailing like that, but nothing happened—his head wound was all but healed, which was as disconcerting as usual.

He had no idea what sort of reaction to expect from Spock. Jim’s mouth was dry, the taste of Tarsus IV gritty and stale on his tongue. “I’m… sorry, that you had to see that, but I thought…” He threw his hands up, letting out a mirthless chuckle. “I don’t know what the hell I thought.”

Spock stared at him for a moment, eyes as dark as the space around them. Then he surged forward, pushing past Jim’s defensive posture and cupping his jaw with his hand, bringing their lips together in a gentle yet pulse-pounding kiss. Jim sighed out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, wrapping his fingers around Spock’s wrist while clutching at his shoulder. After a few more heartbeats they broke apart but didn’t go far.

“You believed that you were of less value because of what you did to ensure the survival of yourself and your friends,” Spock said, his voice low and laced with both sadness and admiration. His thumb brushed idly across Jim’s cheek. “This is one of few instances in which you were incorrect.”

Jim realized his eyes were burning and blinked back the tears that had pooled there. “I did what I had to do… I don’t like no-win scenarios, remember?”

A fond smile tugged at the edges of Spock’s mouth. “You never allow me to forget, nor would I wish to. Jim, there is nothing that I could discover about you that would make me think less of you.”

Jim wondered if Spock was aware of the effect his words had on him, and decided that he had to be, because why say them otherwise? It certainly wouldn’t be _logical_. He grinned, feeling it all the way to his ears and in his bones, devotion and deep affection cohabitating with the fear that he was pushing down. “Good… that’s good.” The conveyer belt ground to a halt, shuffling noises around the crate indicating that a group was expecting them. He pressed his lips to Spock’s, and when he pulled back he winked. “Love you too, Pointy. Let’s go kick some ass.”

 

~***~

 

“Dammit!” McCoy exclaimed, firing his phaser into the writhing pit of bodies that surrounded the dome, the concrete around his feet slick with blood and pieces of tissue. The indicator light on his weapon was flashing, out of time with the red pulse from the dragnet’s computer. “I’m almost out of juice! You got that thing nailed down yet?”

“No, I’m translating about six different languages at once!” Uhura had to shout to be heard over the gnashing noises and breaking bones of the berserkers. “Whoever did this wanted to make sure that not just anybody could disable it—if your phaser’s dying, use mine!”

McCoy holstered his useless weapon and groped in the semi-darkness for the one hanging on Nyota’s waist. “Feel like I should buy you dinner first,” he muttered.

He stayed turned away for too long, didn’t see the crowd of berserkers part as they were stunned continuously by two of Kodos’ men so that another pair could get through. He _did_ feel the metal prongs hit his back, hooked ends digging into muscle tissue. The pain was so sudden that McCoy didn’t even have time to scream when an electric charge drilled through his body, rendering him unconscious as he was yanked off the dome and reeled in like a fish.

“ _Leonard_!” Uhura screamed as she reached out for him, barely missing the fabric of his uniform shirt—that distance felt like miles. She slipped on the blood and slid close to the edge of the concrete plateau, nearly getting grabbed by the eager hands of the berserkers, who had sprung back to life as the guards made off with the doctor.

Furious beyond words, Nyota raised her phaser and blasted away at the living dead people, reducing ten to pulp and cinders. Once she had them back at a safe distance she wanted to go after McCoy, but she knew she’d never make it past the rest of the berserkers. The best way to help him was to wreck the dragnet, and she was determined to rip it into pieces.

 

~***~

 

It turned out that Jim was wrong about them getting drugged as soon as they were out of the crate. Instead, they got attacked. It was because of Jim’s experience he was able to adapt to the situation quickly enough to stay alive. Then again, it helped to have a very pissed-off half-Vulcan on his side.

They were both surprised at the caliber of the people that Kodos had recruited for his personal army—not defectors from militant groups, nor hired hit-men or Starfleet rejects. They were scrappers, rough-and-tumble bar-brawlers like Jim had been—not all human or the same size, but the sentiment was the same.

In two minutes, Jim and Spock had the first group of twenty burly men and women on the ground and were eyeing the next wave, Jim had barely worked up a sweat and wasn’t breathing hard, and though his knuckles were split and bleeding they were quickly knitting back together. Spock wasn’t quite as fortunate due to his lack of Khan-cells, but his biggest injury was a blackening bruise on one cheek.

 _This is wron_ g, a small part of Jim whispered, _you shouldn’t feel this way, this shouldn’t be so easy._ He grinned darkly at the remaining fighters, straightening up and spreading his arms in a _come on_ gesture. When he spoke, his voice was deeper, less his own: “Who’s next?”

“ _Enough_!” Kodos said over the answering screams and catcalls. “That’s quite enough, all of you.”

His tone held enough of its familiar menace that a chill washed down Jim’s spine and he shivered despite himself. He could feel the worry coming off of Spock and didn’t blame him for it—in this brief moment of lucidity, Jim was afraid of what he was doing, what he was turning into, but then the buzzing in his ears (it sounded like laughter) drowned it out.

The group backed off reluctantly, and Kodos stepped forward, illuminated like a specter in the stark lighting of the cavern. “Very well, you’ve made your point, and I have to say that I’m impressed.” He smiled, an expression filled with a twisted sort of glee. “You are everything I was told you’d be, Jimmy.”

The buzzing faded again, because Spock had moved to stand next to Jim, their shoulders not quite touching, but he was close enough for the pressure in Jim’s head to ease. He felt a flare of anger despite the curdling sensation in his stomach. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Don’t play dumb—you know exactly what it means. But then again you’re not exactly… _yourself_ , are you?”

“It appears our suspicions were correct, Captain,” Spock said, his brow furrowed. “He knows—I do not know _how_ , but he does.”

Kodos waved a hand. “The how is not important, Mister Spock, but if you must know, I had my on-planet personnel speak with some of the staff at the hospital where your dear captain was treated. It was a Starfleet facility and there were no records of his treatment in the database, but it’s amazing how talkative nurses get when you put pressure in the right places. They didn’t know details, of course, but they observed enough of Doctor McCoy’s actions for me to figure out how he saved his life, made him into what he is now. Once I had the formula, I simply needed something big enough to catch your attention.”

“So you destroyed an entire _planet_? Again?” The vehemence in Jim’s tone was obvious.  “Once wasn’t enough? Well, you wanted me here—you’ve got me. Now what?”

“All in good time.” Kodos nodded to the rest of the brawlers, who fell in behind Jim and Spock, blocking the route back to the conveyer belt but not looking very confident while they did it. “I’d like you boys to come and see something… my master plan is a two-part process.”

Everything in Jim—everything that was _his_ , anyway—was telling him to dig in his heels. Indulging a madman was never a good idea, especially not one with a track record as successful as Kodos’… but apparently Kodos needed _his_ help in order to succeed this time. And as sickening as it was, Jim knew how this particular madman ticked—Kodos wanted the power that Khan had inadvertently given to Jim for himself.

The cavern narrowed into a smaller tunnel, their footsteps echoing off the bedrock walls. Jim stared at Kodos’ back and thought more than once of snapping his neck, but he knew that he and Spock would wind up dead less than a second later due to the friendly folks behind them. There was a bend in the path, and when they turned the corner Jim could hardly believe what he saw.

Spanning from the floor to the ceiling and wall to wall was a thick sheet of clear aluminum, outfitted with an airlock door and some kind of bulky filtration system.

Everyone stopped walking, waiting as Kodos fiddled with the data PADD mounted into the wall.

Jim moved his fingers a fraction of an inch, so that they brushed the back of Spock’s hand, ignoring the spark he felt at the contact. He sought out their mental connection easily and used the touch as an amplifier. _Is that what I think it is?_

 _If you think it is a portable atmospheric stability device, then the answer is yes,_ Spock replied, the unease he kept carefully in check coming through with no barrier between them. _This type of device is used mostly in on-site ship repair or biohazard cleanup. I hesitate to wonder what Kodos is doing with one._

The door hissed open and Jim managed not to flinch at the sound—it played a frequent role in his radiation-related nightmares. The ragtag group shuffled through the entrance, which sealed itself shut behind the last of Kodos’ guards. They were in a vast cave now, one that had been enlarged with explosives and drills. It was crawling with workers and various machines.

A catwalk crossed between the walls overhead, attached to a platform near the top of what Jim realized with dawning horror was a massive spaceship.

It looked like a cross between one of the old NASA rockets Jim had read about in high school and the Gherkin Building in London—a cylindrical shape with rippling sides and a needle nose end. There were thrusters at the bottom along with wing-like protrusions to aid steering. She reminded Jim of a sleek great white shark, terrible in her beauty and hard to look away from.

Kodos turned to face them, spreading his arms wide. “What do you think? I know she’s not much to look at compared to your _Enterprise_ , but when you’re forced to work underground you can only expect so much.” He looked almost like a proud father. “She carries around a hundred people and her system is configured to allow for full warp capability. Very maneuverable—at least in the simulations—and impervious to several different types of weaponry.”

Whatever Jim had expected Spock to ask, it wasn’t, “What is she called?” The light reflected off the ship’s glossy hull lit his angular features harshly, and when he looked at Kodos his dark eyes were flat. “She would not have a registry number, but certainly she has a name?”

There was no hesitation in Kodos’ response: “I haven’t settled on one yet, but I’ve grown fond of the _Decider_. She will carry me out into the stars and together we’ll cull this herd we call the universe. Those who are worthy will carry on through blight and madness, and those who are not will be sacrificed for—”

“ _The greater good_ ,” Jim finished, as hard as the stone around them. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not gonna happen. As soon as the _Enterprise_ is able to locate us—”

Kodos flashed his teeth. “Ah, yes—your dear Lieutenant Uhura has almost reached her goal. Once the dragnet has been disabled, your ship will be able to pinpoint her location down to feet and guess at yours… you speak as though I would forget something as critical as that.”

A metallic rumbling churned above them, feedback from a ship taking off rocking the earth and making everyone who didn’t have plugs cover their ears. Jim and Spock traded a wide-eyed look—the only explanation for the noise was that the shuttlecraft that Kodos had used to infect Cygnia Minor had just taxied out of the warehouse and taken off. That meant that Nyota had to have disabled the dragnet, otherwise the ship’s computers wouldn’t have been able to initiate takeoff.

Kodos was standing within arm’s reach of Jim now, a satisfied smile curling his lips. One of his workers pressed a comm unit into his hand as she hurried by, and his liverwurst smile widened. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen next, Mister Kirk. You are going to radio up to the _Enterprise_ and inform your acting captain that he or she is to cooperate fully with the crew aboard my shuttlecraft, which will act as a tugboat for your ship and guide it to land on the surface of Tarsus IV—the process should take no more than an hour. During this time they will not contact Starfleet or any nearby Federation members. If you attempt to speak in code, if you give any orders other than what I have just described, if you or your acting captain attempt any sort of heroics, be aware that the _Enterprise_ ’s three most senior officers will die slowly and painfully in the bowels of this godforsaken rock. Not only that, but my brother and his daughter have enough contact explosives packed into their palms to blow apart a good chunk of your ship with a clap—if my shuttle or this planet is fired upon, they will do exactly that, and if you kill them you will get the same result. Do you understand?”

Jim glanced at the comm and then at Kodos, one word standing out to him and brightening the red splotches on his vision. “What do you mean, her _three_ most senior officers?”

 _You didn’t see this one coming?_ Khan commented, though his voice was faint, and Jim chalked that up to Spock’s current proximity. _Now that’s just sad._

“Bring him out,” Kodos called, and from the other side of the _Decider_ came two guards, dragging something—some _one_ —limp and bloodstained between them. He had his hands shackled in energy bracelets in front of him, and the guards each pulled him along by an elbow. “There, now we’re all here—isn’t that better?”

Jim felt his knees go weak, the breath punched out of his lungs as he realized that the captured man was _Bones_ and he looked like he was dead. Beside him, Spock was frozen like a life-sized statue, shock and anger rolling off him in one great sweep before retreating. One of the guards seized McCoy by the hair, pulling his head back and leaving no room for doubt of who their prisoner was. His face was a mess of welts and bruises, one eye swollen shut, a large scrape across his chin and split lips.

Involuntarily Spock and Jim both took a step toward their companion, but Kodos shook his head. “No—not yet.” He held out the comm unit. “Call your acting captain and give him your orders first.”

Jim had never hated someone more than he hated Kodos. Khan’s bloody whispers in his head—telling tales of ripping away limbs and tearing muscle, bruising, burning—weren’t helping his sanity, but his rational mind was still functional. It was obvious what had to happen in order for them and his crew to live—for the moment, they had to play along. He took the comm without touching Kodos’ hand and pushed the button to send out a signal. “Kirk to _Enterprise_.”

Hikaru’s voice came through the speaker a second later. “Captain? Sulu here. Uhura’s disabled the dragnet but she says Doctor McCoy is gone and she’s refusing to be beamed up until we can locate him—”

“Beam her up anyway, Sulu. Listen, Chekov’s gonna have an unregistered ship coming up on the scanners and it’s going to attempt to set up a tow line—you need to let it do that.”

There was a pause, but Sulu was quick on the uptake—he knew immediately that something had gone terribly wrong. “Are you shitting me, sir?”

“Wish I was. The shuttle is going to pull the _Enterprise_ down to the planet’s surface, so make sure you turn up the gravity wells so she doesn’t burn up. Keep an eye on Anton and Lenore—Kodos says they’ve got explosives under their skin and I believe him. Don’t try firing on the planet or calling Starfleet—you’ll all die, and so will we.”

“Does he want the ship? Captain, we can’t just—”

“Relax, Mister Sulu!” Kodos interjected, taking the final step so that he was standing in Jim’s personal space, breathing the same air as his spoke into the comm. Jim felt his whole body go rigid and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Spock looked ready to tear the man’s throat out. “I have no intention of claiming the _Enterprise_ for myself—she’s a fine vessel, but I have my own. If you do as your captain orders and do not attempt to be clever, you and your shipmates will make it through this in one piece.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” Sulu muttered, before clearing his throat. “We’ve just beamed Uhura aboard, sir—the shuttle’s approaching, I’ll give the order to allow the tie-on. When will we hear from you?” Kodos started to speak again and he interrupted, “I was talking to the _captain_.”

Jim quickly hid a smile. “When the Enterprise is on the ground—be careful with her, Hikaru. She wasn’t made for this.”

“Aye aye, sir. Sulu out.”

Jim shoved the comm at Kodos and he and Spock both hurried to McCoy, his two escorts wisely backing off when they caught a glimpse of Jim’s very loosely contained fury. He dropped to his knees beside his battered best friend. “Bones? You with us?”

Bones spat out a molar. “Yeah, yeah—I’m here.” He grabbed Jim by the shirt, with a hand that seemed to have been deliberately left unharmed. “You can’t do this—you can’t give him what he wants.”

“Unfortunately, we do not appear to have an alternative,” Spock said in a low voice. “Are your wounds primarily superficial?”

The doctor snorted. “Thanks for the concern, Mister Spock. They just knocked me around a little—not any worse than a barroom in Atlanta.”

“Of course not,” Kodos said, strolling over. “We couldn’t have you get torn apart by those rabid animals upstairs—you’re far too valuable for that.”

“That’s it, I’m done.” Jim got to his feet, stepping in front of Bones and Spock and facing Kodos head-on. His blue eyes flashed brighter for a moment without his knowledge. “You said you had some kind of two-part plan, right? How about you share with the rest of the class? You already have me, you don’t need my crew—”

“You’re right. I don’t. But it’s been previously proven that you’ll do anything for your friends, and not just by yours truly.” Kodos noticed the change in Jim’s irises but didn’t comment on it. “The first part of my plan is something I believe you’ve already put together for yourself—I want what you have. The strength, the speed, the power. I wasn’t originally going to gain it in this manner. I was fully prepared to slaughter everyone on your ship except for you. I invited Lieutenant Riley and Doctor Leighton to conduct the procedure—transferring your modified cell structure to mine—but they both declined.” He smiled. “And now they’re dead. Mister Spock and Doctor McCoy are more than suitable replacements, given their firsthand experience.”

“And like I told your goons, _it won’t work_!” Bones was livid as he spat out another tooth. “The thing with Khan was a one-time deal—we got the cells directly from the source. With Jim it would be secondhand—”

“And highly illogical,” Spock added. “The statistical likelihood of the transfer being successful would be approximately—”

Kodos was still smiling, and now his jaw was clenched. “But there’s no harm in trying, is there, gentlemen? Especially if you’d like to live to see another day.”

McCoy took in a breath to curse, Spock doing the same to blurt out another set of facts.

Jim held up a hand for silence, his gaze never leaving Kodos’ wrinkled, scheming face. To say he had a _bad feeling_ would have almost been redundant. “So let’s say it works. What’s part two?”

“Smart boy—always wants to get straight to the point.” Kodos raised a hand of his own, gesturing toward the _Decider_ looming in the background. “As you can see, the ship I’ve spent the past few years constructing is state-of-the-art, perfect for my purposes. The problem is that she’s missing one rare and highly essential part.”

Jim glanced over his shoulder at the mirror-ball contraption. “And what’s that?”

“A warp core.”

Those three words hung in the air, still like death.

Spock was the one to say it: “You want the _Enterprise_ ’s warp core.”

Kodos nodded. “It’s brand-new and barely used, unless my sources on Earth are mistaken—a great fit.”

“How the hell do you expect to get it out of our ship and into yours?” Jim asked, baffled. “The radiation in that chamber kills in minutes.” His tone went sardonic. “Believe me, I know.”

“I have a container that is properly insulated against the dangers of the core and a robot that can install it on the _Decider_.” The old Kodos—the cruel, belligerent Governor—was out in full swing. “And as for getting it off the _Enterprise_ , Mister Kirk, that part is simple.” He paused. “You’re going to walk inside and get it for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH YEAH
> 
> I JUST WENT THERE
> 
> AND I BOUGHT PROPERTY
> 
> UGH I'M TERRIBLE


	9. part nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for language, violence/gore, general creepiness involving dead people, misuse of Gary Mitchell, and Spock cracking wise.)
> 
> HEY GUYS! You would not believe how excited I am about this chapter - we've probably got two or three more to go, but this really sets up the action and I loved writing it. Most of it got done late last night, but this has been a long time coming. The flashback and the dream should answer a couple of reader questions, although I've posed a lot more with everything else. ;) There's a bit of Kirk/Spock and some Jim 'n Bones ribbing, along with the crew plotting away. All will be revealed in time... you won't believe the ending I have in mind for this thing. By the way, I'd like to mention that while I'm working on this fic I've also got an original project going, a science-fiction piece that will (hopefully) get published next year or so. Just throwing that out there, too! Have fun with the chapter!

Not long after Jim made his deal with Kodos in the warehouse, the colony on Tarsus IV began its final spiraling decent into hell. The population was down to a handful now, not including Kodos or his guards. Three months ago there had been over eight thousand happy and healthy people roaming the streets, now less than four hundred of them remained.

The day started like any other.

Jim was up before dawn, applying the medicated cream to Tommy’s slowly-healing face and making him take the pill that accompanied it. Then he took two bottles of water and two cans of tuna from the satchel he’d been given and opened them.

The nine kids tended to snore through the noise, but Kevin always woke up now—he felt responsible for Leslie’s death, even though nobody blamed him but himself.

She had been told repeatedly not to go outside after dark, but she was a flighty girl and undoubtedly had seen something glimmering in the moonlight that interested her. She had crawled over Kevin in order to get out of the cave—Jim had been in town and Tommy was in no shape to stop anyone from doing anything—and he had awoken to her drawn-out scream as she plunged into a nearby ravine. Now Kevin barely slept and when he did it was always restless.

With an incredible amount of self-control, Jim would take only one scoop of tuna for himself. It was oily and chewy and settled in his shriveled stomach like a ball of lead. He chased it with water and then grabbed his shovel, heading out into the dusty morning, the spade of the shovel held outward like a weapon as he walked into the colony.

That was where the similarity to any other day had ended.

There was no announcement about work for food on that morning, but there had been the previous morning and it was rare that they came two days in a row. Jim proceeded to Burial Site Six—he’d used pieces of rebar to number them—thinking that he would continue his digging from the day before.

When he got there, he found that overnight eight more bodies had been placed on the pallet next to the half-dug hole in the ground. This wasn’t unusual—people died overnight regularly—but there was something wrong with how one of the bodies _looked_ …

It took Jim a moment to work it out, and when he did he dropped his shovel. The next-to-last body in the row was a _guard_. His gray Starfleet-issue security uniform was rumpled and bloodstained and caked with dirt and that was why Jim hadn’t recognized it right away.

No guards had died since Kodos had taken over the colony, when he had personally executed the ones who refused to obey him. They had plenty of food and water and access to medicine, so it was odd that one of them would not only be deceased, but mixed in with your run of the mill corpses.

_Could this be some kind of test_? Jim wondered. The streets were empty save for a few wanderers who were either disappointed about there being no work orders or who were so deep into starvation or heatstroke that they were hallucinating. If somebody was watching, he couldn’t see them, so he turned his attention back to the body.

Jim crouched down and searched for a pulse, first on the man’s wrist and then his neck—nothing. He was definitely dead, and from the feel of his muscles had been that way for at least six hours or so.

As he was pulling away Jim nudged the man’s jaw with his hand and gasped at what he saw. There was a large purple welt on the man’s cheek, almost like a Port wine stain. It was decaying much too rapidly for how long he’d been deceased—you learned things like that when you spent time with the dead.  There was also a black ooze leaking from the wound, one that looked a lot like what the crops had melted into.

_What the hell?_ There was sudden activity next to the body, and Jim jerked back, managing to keep in a scream. Bodies going through rigor had tendencies to move unexpectedly, but this was nothing like that. There were no rats on Tarsus IV—they had long since been eaten into extinction—so what had—

Another man in a trashed guard uniform sat up from where he had been _sleeping next to the dead guy_ and aimed his phaser at Jim’s head.

He was in his early twenties and looked a little older than the dead guard. His eyes were wide and red, rimmed puffy as if he had been crying. When he spoke his voice was as rough as sandpaper: “You the grave-digging kid?”

Jim nodded.

The live man let out a sighing breath and lowered the weapon, using his other hand to rub at his face. “This here’s my brother, Sam. He’s dead.”

Jim ignored the shudder that ran up his spine at the coincidence. He was going to offer condolences, but instead what came out of his mouth was, “I noticed.” He winced at his own tactlessness and prepared to get shot.

The guard snorted. “That was pretty obvious, huh? Sorry.” His features twisted with anger. “I still can’t believe what that bastard did, I guess.”

Jim’s brows furrowed as his eyes flickered from Sam’s crumpled form to his brother’s anguished face. “Did… Kodos do this?” When the guard nodded, Jim again looked at the welt on the dead man’s face—it was like nothing he’d ever seen before, and that was saying something. “How?”

“Put the damn fungus in our rations,” the guard said. “Only for half of us, though, and it was... different. The guys that ate it, they got wounds like these—” here he pointed at his brother’s cheek “—and they went crazy, bouncing off walls, screaming their throats raw. Governor Kodos said that he was testing out a cure, but I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. You ask me, he probably started this whole mess.”

Jim felt something stir in his chest, fluttering back to life behind his heart—it was the same thing he felt every time he looked at the little kids’ faces, the same thing he felt every time the sun rose. He’d probably just get burned by allowing himself to hope, but he was sick of digging graves and going hungry and waiting to die. “My name is James Tiberius Kirk. Who are you?”

“Gary Mitchell.” They shook hands, and Gary had the same idea that was working its way through Jim’s brain. He grinned, white teeth standing out against his dirty face. “Now that we’re through the pleasantries, how about I help you finish digging this hole?”

“That’d be great.” Jim flicked his greasy hair out of his face, the hope cresting as he saw the resolve and the need for revenge glinting in Gary’s eyes. “And then we can figure out how to feed Kodos his own poison.”

 

~***~

 

“You _do_ know this is crazy, right?” McCoy said in a low voice, the Eyebrow Twitch back in full force despite how swollen his face was. He pulled a set of tubes and needles out of a digital machine no bigger than a loaf of bread, trailing them over to where Jim was laying on a cold metal table. “Actually, it’s off the charts nuts, even for you. This procedure alone might kill you, never mind the goddamn warp core!”

“Can’t say no unless you have a better plan, Bones,” Jim replied, staring up at the bright laboratory lights above him until the glare stung his retinas. The truth was he was skeptical and scared shitless, but he wasn’t about to let that show. He glanced at his best friend as he inserted the six needles into Jim’s forearm until the tubes met his skin. In a whisper—mindful of the six guards posted at the door—he asked, “Is that your phaser, or are you just happy to see me?”

Bones rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, the idea of giving your Khan superpowers to a megalomaniac gets me all hot and bothered.” He leaned down to speak without being overheard. “It’s Uhura’s. I shoved it in my pants before they beat me up and prayed I wasn’t gonna blast off something important—might come in handy later.”

“Maybe you and Spock can use it to get out of here if I…” _Don’t make it_.

“Don’t say it—bad enough that I did.” Bones rubbed his face. “It’s simple in theory. The modified blood cells travel out of you and into the gizmo. They’re multiplied, the copies are fed into Governor Asshole, and the originals go back into you. I checked the equipment over and it doesn’t looked rigged, but I don’t have much to judge it against.” He tapped Jim’s forehead with his index finger. “Don’t suppose our favorite augment has anything to say about it? Pretty sure his voice in your head is a just psychological side effect, but still.”

Jim wasn’t so sure about that, but he wasn’t going to bring it up; they had enough to deal with. “I doubt it.” When Bones went back to setting up for the procedure, Jim blew out a breath and concentrated, searching for Khan’s rolling dark cloud in the back of his consciousness. _Well?_

_Kodos is far more devious than I first imagined,_ Khan said after a long moment of silence, as if he had been debating his words. His tone was neutral, indifferent. _I thought perhaps you were exaggerating, but memories do not lie—your situation is rather dire._

_And that’s not funny like it was the other times, because I’m right, aren’t I?_ Jim hadn’t allowed what he was about to say to go beyond the initial thought, it disturbed him that much. He also hadn’t wanted Spock to know. _I’m not imagining you in my head—there’s nothing wrong with my brain. We’re connected, somehow._

_Oh, bravo—the great captain comes to his realization._ Khan’s voice now held its usual dry pitch. His next words were lower and chilling. _When Doctor McCoy gave you my blood, some of your painfully_ human _cells were transferred to me. We are unfortunate brothers, James Kirk, an accident of time and space. What happens to you could potentially affect me, even in my… current condition._ He paused. _However, the same could be said for Kodos—what hurts us may hurt him, once the process is completed._

Before Jim could say anything else, the connection between them was severed. He blinked, Spock’s familiar features swimming into view above him—he had made his way over from where he had been gazing out the observation window, which had a view of the entire cavern. Apparently the bond they had had been strengthened by the mind meld back in the crate—now his first officer’s presence chased Khan away seemingly without his knowledge. If Jim hadn’t had some serious life-or-death things going on, he probably would’ve marveled at and/or been scared shitless by how fast this… relationship… he was in was progressing.

Spock was frowning at McCoy, who had found the restraints that went with the table. “Is that really necessary?”

“I’m afraid so,” the doctor responded, gently wrapping the dull plastic around Jim’s arm before connecting it to the table stand. “I’d rather have him tied down if that strength kicks in at the wrong time—he could hurt himself and I may not be able to fix it.” He tightened the band around Jim’s left leg for emphasis.

Jim mustered up a grin. “Kinky, Bones. You take me to all the best places.” He turned his hand palm-up and was startled by the lightning bolt of sensation that shot up his arm when Spock took it in his own. Their eyes met and he felt a flush crawling up his neck. Above him, the vital sign monitor spiked crazily. “So… how bad is it?”

“Not counting the six men stationed in this room, there are seventy-five additional personnel in the main chamber, all far better armed than they were earlier. I would infer that there are at least twice as many of them in the adjoining tunnels and on the planet’s surface, waiting for the _Enterprise_.” The cadence of Spock’s voice was familiar and soothing to Jim, even if his words were the opposite. “I believe there is a metaphor about a creek and lack of a paddle that would be appropriate for this situation.”

That got a snort from Bones, and Jim squeezed Spock’s hand. “I think I know the one you mean.” He paused, the enormity of what was about to happen weighing on him before he pushed it aside. Quietly, he said, “Spock, if this doesn’t go well… I, uh, I want you to know—”

The door to the lab opened and the six guards stepped aside to allow Kodos and his menagerie of doctors, nurses, and one guy that looked like a shaman to enter. For a moment Spock’s hand gripped Jim’s so tightly he felt the bones grind together, could see the carefully concealed loathing that Spock felt for the man and wondered if his own looked just as ugly or worse. What had Jim been about to say before Kodos walked in? What did _that_ feeling look like?

_Appearances do not matter,_ Spock commented, the warm countenance a tangible thing that Jim wanted to hang on to. _It belongs to you, th’y’la, and I would not change it for anything._

_Let’s hope you’re still saying that when this is over,_ Jim replied, wondering briefly what that (undoubtedly) Vulcan word meant, but deciding he’d ask later… providing there _was_ a later. _Speaking of which, are you staying?_

_If that is what you wish._ Jim could _hear_ the smirk behind Spock’s next words. _You_ are _the captain, after all._

“Might want to knock off the creepy mind-talk before they get over here,” McCoy muttered, kicking out a chair for Spock to sit in. “And plunk your ass down—they’ll be less likely to shoot you if you lose the sentinel look.” He waited until the commander did so before turning to face Kodos, not bothering to hide his derision. “You all set?”

“Of course,” Kodos replied, lying down on the table next to Jim’s and spreading his arms, a falsely good-natured grin on his face. “Have at me.”

_I would be delighted to,_ Spock thought.

Jim doubted he was meant to hear that but imagining Spock delighted about _anything_ made him chuckle. Then the anesthesia flowing from one of the tubes hit his system, and he didn’t hear anything for a long time.

 

~***~

 

Nyota strode onto the bridge of the _Enterprise_ fully prepared to kick Sulu’s ass regardless of him being the temporary captain. “Hikaru, what the hell? I _told_ you not to beam me up—I can’t believe you just left them down there!”

“Direct order from the captain,” Sulu said, and the fact that he looked as pissed off as Uhura felt lessened her ire. “Kodos has Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and he’s using them to get us to bring the _Enterprise_ down to the planet’s surface.”

Nyota rocked back a step, stunned. “ _What_?” She knew there had to be more to it, judging by the grim expressions of the bridge crew—the senior officers’ lives were in danger all the time, and that wouldn’t evoke this kind of reaction. “What’s the other part?”

Chekov was monitoring the _Enterprise_ ’s slow decent to Tarsus IV and the tow line connected to the shuttle. He turned in his chair to look at her. “Kodos claims that Lenore and Anton have explosives implanted under their skin, and if we do not do what we are told they will blow up the ship.”

Sulu pressed the intercom button on his armrest. “Bridge to Sickbay—Carol, what’s the word on the explosives in the Karidians?”

“Not good,” Doctor Marcus replied. “They have nanotech implants about an inch in diameter directly bonded to the musculature and bones in their palms—you can’t see it without a black light. All it would take to blow a hole in the hull is a clap, and there’s no way for M’Benga and I to cut one out without risking a blast. Once one goes, the other one will too.”

Scotty’s voice came over the intercom next, and Nyota was happy as hell to hear that brogue. “Hikaru, we can’t just let them have the bloody ship! You know damn right well Jim would rather die than give her to that old fuck!”

“I’m not sure that’s what he wants,” Sulu said, staring out the view screen in thought. “He said he had his own ship—knowing the way this guy works, we have to assume his vessel is near or at the same caliber as ours. That means he wants something the _Enterprise_ has that his ship doesn’t. Any guesses as to what that might be?”

“There’s only a few things I can think of that he’d have a hard time getting.” Scotty contemplated the problem for a moment. “As I’m sure Carol could tell you, all sorts of weapons run rampant around the galaxy—besides, he seems to be into destroying planets up close and personal, not with a missile or a cannon. Don’t know what his computer setup is like, but those can be modified—it’d be helpful to know what kind of power he’s using, otherwise I’m looking for a needle in a stack of hay.”

A thought occurred to Uhura. “What if Jim wasn’t the only reason Kodos targeted the _Enterprise_?”

“So he is looking for something that _we_ have?” Chekov asked.

Nyota clenched her hands into fists, nails digging into her palms as she said, “The warp core. What if he wants to take the warp core?”

Silence fell over the bridge crew, monitors beeping and the dead air of the comm channel crackling the only sounds in the interim. It was a horrible and terrifying proposition. Sulu rubbed his forehead. “Unfortunately, that makes sense. Scotty, could he have the machinery to do that down there?”

“No way of knowing that he doesn’t—he’s been down there over a decade,” the engineer replied. “Still, even if he did have the proper technology and a ship to receive it, it takes _days_ to shut down the warp core safely, and I doubt he’s willing to wait that long.”

“A man like Kodos isn’t looking for safe,” Chekov pointed out. “He’s looking for what he wants, and he wants it now.”

Carol sucked in a breath. “If you used the manual override—”

“—you’d have it shut down in minutes,” Scotty finished. “Damn. Problem is the radiation levels are still toxic at that point. Anybody that went in there to pull the plug and get the core out would die in minutes.”

“Not Jim,” Uhura said. “Khan’s DNA saved him from the radiation, right? What if it protects him, too?”

“Or Kodos thinks it will, and he’ll send Jim in after the core before risking himself,” Sulu added, the frown lines in his face deepening at the thought. “We can’t let that happen.” He paused, turned the chair so he could look at nearly everyone. “I’m open to ideas, people. Anybody got anything?”

“Maybe,” Carol murmured. She cleared her throat. “Who knows how to fly one of those cute little shuttles we have in the basement?”

 

~***~

 

Spock lasted approximately twenty minutes into the procedure without touching the captain. Doctor McCoy hadn’t been sure if it would affect the outcome, so he’d asked Spock to release Jim’s hand shortly after he was pulled under by the anesthesia. He didn’t share the opinion but the pained look on the doctor’s face made him acquiesce.

So Spock sat in the chair at Jim’s side with his hands folded in his lap, keeping a distrustful eye on Kodos’ men. They were watching him in turn, ready fingers on the triggers of their weapons. He knew that contact with Jim would distract him if he didn’t keep it at arms’ length, but when the captain’s—his _th’y’la_ ’s—face began to twitch involuntarily, followed by one of his legs, Spock had to do _something_.

He rested a hand on the edge of the table and tentatively touched the back of Jim’s hand with his index finger. The contact sent a jolt of electricity up his arm and Spock shuddered, wondered if it would always be like this between them, and then he was sucked into Jim’s mind, not able to slow his descent—

_—just like Jim’s shredded shoes had been sucked into the wet sand of a classic Tarsus IV storm, causing him to trip and fall during his mad dash back to the cave and the kids._

_He and Gary had rounded up the rebels and hosted a meeting in the dilapidated basement of one of the burned-out community buildings. Gary and a couple of the other sympathizing guards had to leave early because of a shift change, so it had been up to Jim to convince about a hundred worn-out, scrawny adults that they had the power to bring Kodos down—not an easy task. The meeting had broken up when the black clouds rolled in, but Jim had told them about Gary’s brother and how Gary believed Kodos had engineered the fungus. Most of the group had listened and nodded along, agreeing to return the following night to come up with a solid plan._

_Then he saw the blood._

_It was right in front of him, a thick trail of it soaked into the sand by the rain, like a red river. He tracked it with his eyes, knew where it was coming from before he saw it, saw the mouth of the cave. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, found Tommy unconscious near the entrance, a large wound on the back of his head. Kevin was sprawled out near him, coming around and hacking up water._

_But the kids, the kids were all dead, throats slit like lambs led to slaughter, and the fury that flowed through Jim was unlike anything he’d ever felt, it was so_ strong _—_

~***~

 

Jim sat straight up as though he were possessed, the urgent chirping of his vitals blowing off the charts overwhelmed by the roaring of blood in his ears and the gritty phantom feeling of sand against every part of his body. He gasped for air even though it was readily available, muscles flexing as he snapped the restraints off his arms and legs as easily as straw.

He was up and off the table, the rage a drumbeat in his head, the insatiable need for revenge and to just _get away_ taking the driver’s seat. He barely felt it when the six needles were torn from his arm, sending blood and fluids spraying everywhere. He could hear a commotion and frantic yelling and almost turned toward the noise, but decided to keep going forward, until he ran into something solid and warm, familiar arms wrapping around his back.

_Spock_. The invisible band wrapped around Jim’s chest relaxed, as reality came trickling through, the sensory pain he’d been in easing. He tipped his head back to look up at his first officer and what he saw in those dark eyes nearly took away the breath he’d just regained—that was _love_. Jim hadn’t seen that emotion aimed at him much in his life, but he’d witnessed it exhibited for others and recognized it immediately.

Before either one of them could say anything, Bones was tackling them to the floor. Phaser blasts erupted from the guards, Kodos’ team of medical personnel hitting the deck with screams and cries of pain as some of them were caught in the crossfire.

Jim sat up and yanked down the table he’d been lying on as cover. He faced Bones and grinned when he saw that the doctor held not one but two phasers. “Nice job—how’d you manage that?”

“Broke some guy’s arm,” was the snappish retort as he shoved a phaser into Jim’s hands. “By the way, that’s the one that was touching my balls.” He passed the other one to Spock.

“Oh good God,” Jim muttered, but then he and Spock were leaning up over the table and returning fire with two weapons when the guards had only expected them to have one. The men went down quickly and the room stank of burning flesh. Jim rose from his crouch and rounded the table, making a general announcement to the living left in the laboratory: “You scream or press a panic button, you die. I’m done being charitable.”

He heard a phaser shot pass behind him and was turning as Spock said his name sharply, a warning almost in unison with Bones. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion from then on.

The phaser hung forgotten at Jim’s side as he took in the little balding man—a doctor, judging from his white coat—who was swinging a big hypodermic needle filled with something in the neighborhood of Jim’s head, probably originally for his jugular.

_Change of plans_ , Khan murmured, but this time his voice was _so much closer_ than it had been before, rumbling through Jim’s head like an old freight train.

Jim’s hand had closed around the bald doctor’s wrist and snapped to the right, breaking his arm as easily as a child playing too roughly with a doll. The man let out a shriek and dropped to one knee, and Jim promptly pulverized his other one with his instep, which sent him twisting away and yanked his already wounded arm out of its socket as he crumpled to the ground. The hypodermic skittered away, forgotten.

Before his mind could process what he’d just done—what Khan had just _made_ him do—Jim whipped around in time to see Kodos tossing Bones into the nearest wall with a sickening _crack_. Then he combined belting Spock across the face with a palm strike to the abdomen. He tossed the Vulcan into the upended table like a sack of flour, like he was _nothing_ , and that had Jim’s vision flaring red and white and Khan laughing at his _weakness_ —

Every part of Jim went still suddenly, and he strained against the unseen force holding him in place. He looked with too-blue eyes at this disgusting man—who he hated more than anyone else in the goddamn _universe_ —and figured out that a terrible situation had just gotten more twisted.

“I’ve been experimenting with gene splicing recently,” Kodos said, as casually as _oh, it’s going to rain tomorrow_ , “and I found some fascinating telekinetic elements that I had preprogrammed into that nifty box that applied your modified cells to my own.” He was holding Jim back _with his mind_ , and then tossed him through the air as he strolled along, stomping on the necks of his remaining personnel. “Even your Khan Nooinen Singh didn’t have this kind of power—it’s truly incredible.”

Jim was hacking up blood, bubbles bursting on his lips from his ribs getting driven into his lungs when he was smacked into the floor with the force of a one-ton hand. He knew he wouldn’t get close to Kodos now, strained to reach the phaser that had flown out of his grip and let out a howl when a boot came down on his hand. He stared up at Kodos, who bared his teeth and ground his heel down harder.

In that moment, Jim realized that if this was a game of cruelty, he would rather lose than try any harder than he had to win. Khan objected loudly with a rush of blood to the head and a valiant effort to make Jim’s body into a puppet and get him to his feet. It was disturbing, the amount of control Khan had over him now, but Jim didn’t have much time to think about it.

Kodos’ boot was off his hand and smashing into his face, and then Jim couldn’t think at all.

 

~***~

 

When Leonard woke up it was to a burning pain in his neck—to match the ones everywhere else, of course—and more pulverized teeth cutting into his gums. He tried to shake off the cobwebs, realized that some time had passed since he took the header in the lab thanks to Kodos, because they were now on the surface of Tarsus IV.

There was sand flying all over the place—in his clothes, his hair, his eyes—but he could see enough to take in the sight of Kodos’ little shuttle tugging the _Enterprise_ the last few dozen feet to the ground. When she landed with a resounding _thump_ , everything shook.

There was a finality in that noise, and Leonard spat out another totaled tooth and sat up, pointedly ignoring the phaser barrels pressed into the back of his head but making no attempt to move further.

Spock was on his left, staring up at their ship with that damn Vulcan nobility despite the trickle of green blood flowing down his chin and the guards standing around him. He held his arm at a strange angle that the doctor in Leonard immediately equated to a break, but his posture was perfect and his eyes were void of emotion.

There was a scuffle off to their right that caused everybody to look, and what Leonard saw made his heart skip a beat and then clang against his sternum, a desperate _no no no_ screaming through his head. The part of him that loved Jim like the little brother he’d never wanted but _needed_ so badly withered in his soul, knew that they’d turned a corner they might not be able to come back from.

Jim was being held on his stomach by eight men and women, practically eating the dirt near Kodos’ feet. He had lifted his head as he tried to thrash out of the collective grip of the guards, and loosed a chilling cackle that wasn’t something that the old Jim Kirk would have been able to produce, it held so much outright malice. His face was twisted into an expression of rage and quick calculation, cunning and readiness to act.

His icy gaze snapped to meet Leonard’s, but the problem was that it wasn’t _Jim’s_ gaze at all. There wasn’t a trace of the heroic captain so many people had come to depend on, not a spark of that magnetism, that goodness, the man that loved the _Enterprise_ and Bones and Spock and the whole crew like family.

No, those eyes belonged to Khan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... ahem. THE ALL IS LOST MOMENT.


	10. part ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (All the usual warnings, plus two character deaths and me taking liberties with the design of the Enterprise's engineering deck.)
> 
> Words cannot express how sorry I am, guys. I know it's been forever (LAST YEAR) since I've updated and I feel SO BAD, you have no idea. Real life got in the way and I got distracted by other things, including the novel I was writing - which is now a mystery instead of science fiction, so you can guess how much of a clusterf*ck that was. Buuut, I watched XI the other day on TV, re-read this, got re-inspired, and thus, a chapter was born!
> 
> ... oh yeah, and people die. Because when I come back, I come back as an ASSHOLE. ;) Hopefully you're all still interested in reading this fic - I realize there is a distinct lack of Space Husbands in this chapter, but I promise more in the next... and on the plus side, there's a heap of Jim/Bones friendship. Again, really sorry, I'm a jerk, BUT PLEASE READ THIS. /flails. Ahem. Thank you.

There had been a traitor at the meeting Jim and Gary had set up with the rebel colonists—that was the only explanation as to how Kodos knew about their plan and was able to make a preemptive strike by killing the kids.

Jim kicked himself, knew he should have expected something like that, but he’d been so goddamn _hopeful_. He should’ve known better, should’ve remembered that anything he allowed himself to hope for always blew away from him, like ashes in the wind.

As the three remaining boys filled the cave with mud as a makeshift grave for the children, a strange stench filled the air, magnified by the torrential rain falling from the sky. The smell was smoky like fire, but with an underlayment of rot and dirt. At first Jim wondered if somebody was burning bodies, but that didn’t seem right either—since the day he and Tommy had happened upon those cannibals, that smell had been burned into Jim’s memory, and they weren’t the same.

He mentioned it to Tommy, who said, “I think it’s coming from the colony.”

Kevin shoved his broken glasses further up on his nose and pointed into the distance. “Look at that! The crops are burning!”

The next flash of lightning allowed them a glimpse of the small plateau where the nearest crop field was located. Once the field had flourished with beautiful gold-and-bronze stripes of grain in every direction; now it was capped with dull and wilted plants that were perfect fuel to allow fire to burn toward the sky… only something was wrong.

The dead crops weren’t getting turned into cinders—they were _melting_ , like an old rubber tire left out in the sun. Another flash of lightning revealed that what Jim had assumed was a growing puddle of rainwater around the plateau was actually some sort of black tarlike substance. It was coming from the burning plants, and flowing down the slope in all directions, including directly toward where they were.

“We need to move!” Jim shouted, desperate to be heard over the rolling thunder. The cave was in a valley and he knew they’d be smothered if the sludge reached them.

They scrambled up to level ground and made a break for the colony, hopping rivulets of black ooze that burned the skin clean off their feet and tried to suck them in. When they were a quarter mile outside of town, the landmines started exploding. Apparently more than one field had been hit by lightning— _or by something else_ , Jim thought with a grimace—and they were all burning in a manner identical to the one on the plateau.

He and Kevin and Tommy found a ridge to stand on, and now they could see that the black substance was like an oil slick that stretched for at least a mile, and some of it had reached the last residential buildings in the colony.

Earlier in the day Kodos must have had his men rig bombs around the perimeter—maybe he had suspected something early, maybe _Gary_ was the traitor—and with every flash of lightning Jim could see body parts and guts and brains scattered in the street. The ordinance was going off due to the heat coming from the sludge, and anyone trying to escape the blasts was dragged down in the sludge, kicking and screaming as the plant tar choked them, burned out their throats and noses and eyes.

Tommy was pointing and yelling in Jim’s ear: “Hey, you see those people over by the biohazard dump? They’re still alive! We gotta help ‘em!”

Jim knew Tommy was right—if they didn’t try to help, they were no better than Kodos and his men. Choking on the smoke and the stench of death, Jim followed his friend down off the ridge, into the belly of the beast.

 

~***~

 

“What’s the likelihood that this plan of yours is gonna work?” Scotty asked as he stood in the shuttle control room with Carol and Uhura, prepping the little cruiser for flight. “I mean, I know we’re probably shit outta luck either way—”

“But you’d like to know which way to dive for cover,” Carol finished, and shrugged her shoulders. She and Nyota were both zipping themselves into flame-retardant suits. “The answer is _not very_ , but this was the only thing I could come up with.”

“We have to do _something_ ,” Uhura agreed, strapping her phaser to her belt, along with her comm and some stun grenades. Through the window, she could see the shuttle turning on its launch disk into a forward position. “I’m not just going to wring my hands while this ship gets used for scrap, and Jim…”

She trailed off, because even without confirmation from the surface, they all knew what Kodos’ plan was. Khan-cells or not, another trip into the warp core chamber most likely spelled death for their captain.

Scotty blew out a breath. “Okay then—she’s all set. I’ll open the bay doors once you’re onboard.” He put his hands on Uhura’s shoulders and she briefly covered them with her own. “You have to be quick about the takeoff, Nyota. If anybody on the surface sees you, this is all over.”

“We’ve got this, Monty. Don’t worry.” Uhura cupped his face in her hands and gave him a brief, chaste kiss. “I’ll see you soon.”

_I sure as hell hope so_ , Scotty thought as the two women head out into the bay. He tried to ignore the bands of dread clenched around his chest like a vise.

On Uhura’s signal, the engineer hit the release switch and watched the little craft zip out into the dusty afternoon sunlight, praying that that wouldn’t be the last time he’d see it.

 

~***~

 

 Jim was trapped in a waking nightmare.

He could see and hear what was going on around him, but he had no control of his body. He felt the weight of the guards on top of him, tasted the grittiness of the dirt in his mouth, and registered the prickling sensation that meant his injuries were healing. Still, it was like his coconsciousness was locked inside a two-way aluminum box—he could look out, but nobody could see that he was inside.

_So sorry you’re upset_ , Khan said in a way that implied the exact opposite, _but somebody had to do something, since the great Captain Kirk is too cowardly to utilize the gift that has been given to him._

_It’s not a gift_ , Jim protested, and why did his voice sound so faint, so small? _It’s a goddamn curse and the whole reason we’re here—_

An invisible hand wrapped around his metaphorical throat, cutting off what he was going to say next. Up until that moment Jim had been aware of what was happening but refused to accept it; now he had no choice. The only upside was that Jim knew Khan had no intention of letting him die on Tarsus IV. Right now he was Khan’s only connection to the outside world and it was clear he wasn’t willing to give that up without a fight.

As much as he hated the idea, there was a way for Jim to use this to his advantage. _Hey—don’t do anything I wouldn’t do._

Khan let out the equivalent of a snort. _That certainly narrows the field of play._ Together they looked up at the looming body of the _Enterprise_ and then at the guards holding Jim’s body down, and he must have realized the situation was tactically dismal. _What are you suggesting?_

_Look, if Kodos figures out that I’m not me—that I’m_ you _—he’s going to have no choice but to take us off the board_ , Jim explained. _He loves a challenge, but if he thinks his chances of winning suck—_

_—he won’t bother playing at all_ , Khan finished, immediately grasping the implication. He paused, debating something. _Well, then I hope this isn’t too out of character._

Jim’s arms were pinned behind his back, held that way by four different people; two leaning on his forearms and one on either of his shoulders. Someone had their foot planted in his back, there was a set of hands on each of his legs, and a woman stood off to his left, aiming a phaser rifle at his head. It was a difficult situation to get out of and something that wouldn’t happen at all if he got his head blown off.

Apparently Khan wasn’t worried about that.

Jim’s left arm tensed for a split second before releasing a massive burst of strength, driving his elbow into the sternum of the man holding the limb down. He fell back, the breath knocked from him, and then Jim’s hand was up and clenched in the shirt of the man on his shoulder, shoving him in front of the phaser blast meant for Jim’s head. The shot passed through him, over Jim, and into the woman on his other shoulder, throwing her a couple of feet away.

Quickly Jim’s pinned arm twisted out from under the fourth man’s grip and he landed a knife-hand strike to his trachea while using the momentum to knock away the two people on his legs. Then he was up and on the woman with the rifle before she could get another shot off, wrestling the big phaser from her hands and bashing her in the face with the stock before turning the rifle on Kodos.

“Now, now, Jimmy—let’s not do anything rash,” Kodos said, reaching out a hand. His fingers curled slowly into a fist, and Jim felt his muscles turning to lead, that telekinetic power Kodos had added to their collective genetic fuckfest taking hold. “After all, we wouldn’t want one of your dear friends here to have an accident.”

Khan was swearing in a foreign tongue, the noise loud and grating in Jim’s head. Without either one of them in control, Jim’s body turned slowly toward where Spock and McCoy were pinned to the ground, the phaser still raised in the air. Kodos tilted his head and concentrated, and Jim’s index finger began to curl around the trigger, growing tenser and tenser—

“All right!” Jim half-shouted, his voice his own and yet not, not to his ears. “I get it—let’s just get this over with. What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said it was simple. You’re going to contact your chief engineer and have him activate the warp core’s manual override, and then you will board your vessel and retrieve it for me.” Kodos gestured to a couple of his guards, who wheeled over a large cylindrical tube, a little bigger than the core mechanism that Jim remembered kicking back into place. “This container is insulated against ten times the radiation that the core puts out, which will prevent it from contaminating anything outside the chamber. Normally you wouldn’t be able to lift it, but I think you’ll manage now.”

The men backed away from the cart, and Kodos released his mental grip on Jim, allowing Khan to move them forward. He set down the rifle and gripped the handle on the cylinder—by itself it had to weigh at least a hundred pounds, but it only felt like twenty.

Kodos clapped his hands together. “Excellent! Now, you have a choice to make.” He tossed Jim a comm unit. “If your crew is worth their salt, as soon as you talk to your engineer they’re going to implement every security measure possible to keep you away from the warp chamber. Therefore, I’m going to allow you to take one of your officers with you—if you’re carrying that container, you’ll need someone to watch your back. The other will remain here with me, to make sure that you do as you’re supposed to.”

It was beyond strange for Jim’s eyes to move and focus on his friends without his consent. He railed against Khan, but his mind was still reeling from the trauma of the transfusion, and Jim couldn’t stop it when “I’ll take Doctor McCoy with me” came out of his mouth.

_You didn’t think I would be foolish enough to choose Commander Spock, did you?_ Khan chuckled. _He is the only thing that can get between us, Kirk—there is no way I would risk losing control over you now._

_If anything happens to him—_

_What are you going to do, kill me? That would be… difficult, in our current situation. Unless you’re feeling suicidal again, of course._ The invisible hand clamped down on Jim’s consciousness again. _Now shut up. I need to concentrate._

Khan made Jim’s thumb flip open the communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ —Scotty, are you there?”

“Aye, Captain.” Scott sounded breathless, like he’d had to hurry back to his station. When his spoke again, his tone was cautious. “What d’you need?”

Jim’s gaze didn’t leave Kodos’ face, his eyes glacially cold. “I need you to shut down the warp core—I’m coming in to get it.”

“But Jim—”

“That’s an order, Mister Scott. Kirk out.”

Jim casually threw the comm over his shoulder— _we have to rebel somewhere_ , Khan noted—and looked at Bones, who was out from under the men who had been on his back. He looked like shit and was covered in his own blood, but he was steady on his feet and stared Kodos down. “If I’m supposed to protect him, I’m going to need something to do it with—I don’t think my wining personality’s gonna be enough.”

“Fair enough,” Kodos said, and pulled a phaser off his own belt—Jim and Khan both recognized it as one of the ones the doctor had stolen earlier. He underhanded it to McCoy, adding, “Don’t think about using that on me, unless you’d like to meet another wall.”

Jim could feel Spock’s eyes on him and wished like hell he wasn’t so goddamn weak, that he could shrug Khan off and take back his choice. If he could have, he would’ve looked back, would’ve tried to be reassuring despite how fucking terrified he was, but Khan was having none of that.

They walked forward in the same body, cylinder on one side and a reluctant Bones on the other, toward the ramp that had emerged from the darkened bowels of the _Enterprise_.

Everyone was so focused on their departure that they didn’t notice the tiny shuttle exiting the rear of the ship.

 

~***~

 

Chekov was staring at his control panels when the warp core shut down, a quiet shudder rocking the _Enterprise_ as her power supply was cut off. A moment later, the secondary came on, which allowed for the communications system and the ship’s computers to remain online. If they had to, they would probably be able to take off from the planet’s surface and exit the atmosphere, but only impulse power would be available for travel.

The intercom crackled. “Shuttle to _Enterprise_ , come in.”

It was Carol, and from the captain’s chair Hikaru hit the button to answer. “Sulu here, Doctor Marcus—what’s your status?”

“We’re staying as low as possible and trying to avoid their sightlines, but it’s tough. The captain and Len just started up the ramp into the ship—Jim’s got some kind of container, looks about the right size for the core.”

Sulu rested his head on his hand. “Dammit. Okay—the computers just came back up, hopefully we’ve got that map ready for you.”

“We do!” Chekov confirmed. “I am sending the module to you now. Now, be aware that it is not foolproof—this was the best guess that the topographical equipment made, and it is only a guess. According to what I’m seeing, there should be an opening on the northwest side of the ridge that will take you to the cave where they are housing the ship.” He leaned back in his seat to look at Hikaru. “It is a lucky thing that their ship’s computer is giving off such a strong signal—her circuitry must be very impressive.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” Sulu said, a pensive expression drawing his features down. “Nyota, Carol, be careful in there—we’ve got no way to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Only one way to find out,” Uhura replied, as she banked into the turn for the tunnel. “Shuttle out.”

Hikaru was silent for a moment, and then he got up from his chair and came over to stand at Pavel’s shoulder. “Do you think Giotto had enough time to get ready?”

Chekov stared out the view screen, which showed nothing but uneven and dusty Tarsus IV terrain. “I certainly hope so.”

 

~***~

 

Leonard was _pissed_. They were in a little-used corridor in the belly of the _Enterprise_ with only battery-powered emergency lights to use as guides. Anything that wasn’t necessary to the ship’s function had been shut off, including the lights on the auxiliary decks. “Hey assface—you do know that our personal Mengele down there is right, right? They’re gonna be waiting for us.”

Jim stopped walking and turned to look at him… except it wasn’t Jim, not really. Everything was _there_ , all in the right places, but his eyes were too condescending, too frozen around the edges. His expression was indifferent, save for the barest hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth, and when he spoke his voice was deeper, more malignant. “ _You_ do know that I could snap your spine in half if I wished it?”

Despite feeling like an ant about to be crushed under a big boot, Leonard scoffed. “Is that why you brought me with you? Because you figured I’d just cower and let you do whatever you want?”

“Not at all—you aren’t the cowering type, Doctor.” Jim motioned Leonard ahead of him at a juncture with another hallway, and the doctor swung the phaser left and right to make sure it was safe before waving him along. “You were simply the lesser of two evils. Commander Spock has an unfortunate effect on the good captain, one that renders me unable to exert control over his body. I haven’t figured out what the cause is, but it is a nuisance.”

“They love each other, you ninny,” was McCoy’s response, and he was on the edge of letting out a hysterical laugh—he just called Khan a _ninny_ while he was wearing Jim’s face and they were sneaking around their own damn starship. If _that_ wasn’t insanity, Leonard didn’t know what was. “I doubt that’s a concept you can grasp, but—”

The next thing Leonard knew he was up against a wall, not-Jim’s hand wrapped around his throat so tightly he immediately saw stars. His expression twisted into one of malicious contempt. “I will give you credit for having a backbone, Doctor, but you should be more respectful when addressing me if you value your life.”

“ _You_ … don’t deserve my respect,” Leonard choked out, before slamming the phaser in his fist against Khan’s— _Jim’s_ —leg and pulling the trigger.

The phaser was on the highest available stun setting, and normally it would’ve been enough to knock Kirk on his ass for an hour. Instead, he hissed through his teeth as the charge travelled through him, the contact burn more excruciating than the blast itself. He grabbed McCoy’s wrist in a merciless grip until he released the phaser with a shout, then tossed him the remaining length of the hall, unflinching when the doctor’s body slammed into the turbolift doors.

“That was a mistake,” Khan intoned, swiping at the blood trickling out of his nose with the sleeve of Jim’s bedraggled uniform shirt. He stalked down the corridor toward Leonard, murder in his too-blue eyes. “Your company was Kodos’ idea, not mine—I don’t need you. It will be the last one you make.”

Leonard had the doors pressed against his back, and because unnecessary power had been diverted to other parts of the ship, there were no lights to indicate the turbolift’s arrival—only the slightest vibration, which he felt the moment it happened.

Hoping like hell Sulu had had time to plan something, he said, “Don’t be so sure of that,” to Khan before rolling onto his stomach, out of the potential line of fire as the doors glided open.

Giotto and Reynolds—the latter of which had been injured on Cygnia Minor and _wasn’t supposed to be out of bed, dammit_ —came out shooting, phaser rifles throwing punishing stun bursts into Jim’s chest. Blue energy crackled like lightning over his body and wrested a howl of agony from his mouth.

For an instant Leonard was relieved, but as he watched his best friend—the noble, stupidly brave, idiotic little brother he never wanted—stagger and fall to his knees, he came back to himself. He sprang to his feet, his battered and bruised body making its protestations known. “Jesus, don’t kill him! It’s still the captain!”

“We’re aware of that, Doctor!” Giotto shouted over the firing. “We’re also under orders to keep him down until Mister Scott can figure a way to trick Kodos into believing he’s getting the real core!”

That made sense, but it didn’t help to ease the vise around at Leonard’s heart as he listened to Jim scream, barely supporting himself on all fours under the barrage of force, head bowed and fingers scrabbling against the floor. Just as Leonard was about to knock the rifle out of Reynolds’ hands, something incredible happened.

Jim’s head rose, and this time it was _Jim_ —his eyes were back to the shade Leonard remembered, and though they contained anger, there was none of the darkness, the _wrongness_ of Khan behind them. It crossed Leonard’s mind that this could be an elaborate trick, but he didn’t think so; the bones that made up the ridiculous nickname Jim was so fond of were telling him otherwise.

“Cease fire! Stop firing, dammit!” Leonard raced forward as soon as the assault ended, the sudden silence almost deafening. He crouched next to Kirk—who had gone still and stiff, breathing shallow and rapid—and placed a hand on his back, worry creasing his face. “Kid, you okay? Jim?”

 

~***~

 

Jim came thrashing back to the surface of his consciousness, pulling in a gasp of air as if he had been drowning for days.

The stunning had given him an advantage over Khan—the augment was used to pain, sure, but he was used to it in _his_ body, where the receptors were duller and he could compartmentalize it. And though Jim’s body had developed many similarities to Khan’s it was still _human_ , and pain in a human body was something Jim had put up with for his entire life. He was able to push past it, but Khan lost his footing and Jim was able to knock him down a peg.

Blinking the sweat out of his eyes ( _yep, just sweat, no tears here_ ), he looked up at Bones, grabbing for the tattered front of the doctor’s shirt. “Sorry,” he rasped, hoarse from screaming his lungs out. “M’sorry… did I hurt you?”

McCoy grabbed Jim’s face in both hands and stared him dead in the eye—Bones saw through him as easily as Spock did. “ _You_ didn’t do a damn thing,” he said fiercely. “I’m just glad you’re you again. You got that?”

Jim nodded, licking his dry lips. “Not sure for how long. I’ll try.” He leaned on Bones for balance as he got to his feet, tipping his chin in Giotto’s direction. Reynolds was speaking into a comm, telling the rest of the security force to stand down. “Hope you didn’t enjoy that too much, Cupcake.”

The big man snorted. “Not at all, sir.” He hesitated. “Status report?”

“Go ahead—he hears everything anyway, whether or not he’s me.” Jim let out a raw laugh. “I’m not drunk enough for this shit, man.”

“None of us are,” Bones muttered, scrubbing a hand down his bruised face. Absently he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Might wanna go grab the housing for the core—I’d do it, but I think that thing weighs more than a hovercar.”

“It’s pretty hefty,” Jim agreed, jogging back to grab the cylinder by its handle—despite the pull of the phaser burns that littered his torso, he was as freakishly strong as ever. He also retrieved the phaser that Bones had been carrying and gave it back to the doctor; he didn’t trust himself to carry it. The four of them got into the turbolift and Jim looked questioningly at Giotto. “How did you guys know I wouldn’t be me?”

His chief of security shrugged. “We didn’t know what to expect—I had the boys block off this deck and we played it by ear.” Giotto hesitated again, something that was out of character. “If I may ask, Captain, where’s Commander Spock?”

Jim felt something twist in his chest, threatening to snap. “He’s still down on the planet’s surface,” he managed to get out. He shut his eyes for a second, trying to find whatever fucking scrap of captain-ly composure he had left. “Kodos is holding him as leverage, to make sure we do what he asks. He… Kodos has Khan’s power now, too, but he doesn’t know that I’ve got Khan in my head—he would’ve killed me.”

Reynolds held his comm out. “Sulu for you, sir.”

Jim took the device, cursing himself when his hand shook with adrenaline and something else, a feeling that he was coming apart at the seams. “Hikaru, how’s it going?”

“Well, it’s damn good to hear your voice again, Captain,” Sulu said, relief apparent in his tone. “And it could be better. We’ve got Mister Scott working on making a replica of the warp core, and while you and Doctor McCoy were boarding the ship, Lieutenant Uhura and Doctor Marcus took the shuttle out to—”

Bones was suddenly crowded into Jim’s space, close enough so that he could talk into the comm. “They did _what_ now?”

“It was Doctor Marcus’ idea,” Chekov added helpfully, Russian accent sounding tinny through the speaker. “They are going to attempt to explode Kodos’ ship once they reach the inside of the mountain. You will present him with the _warp core_ —” Jim could hear the air quotes in his voice “—and before he realizes it is fake, his ship will be destroyed, thus rendering the core useless.”

Bones started muttering to himself about _intelligent women_ and _righteousness_ and _give me a goddamn heart attack_. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and asked, “Did you at least find an entry point for them?”

“Yeah, once the computers came back online.” Sulu sounded defensive. “You know, Carol and Nyota are more than capable of—”

“I’m not arguing that, Hikaru—Carol saved my ass and I think we’re all a little scared of Uhura. I have zero doubt of their abilities, but I do want to know that they’ve got something to work with.”

“Sounds like they’ve got more than we do at this point, Bones.” Jim felt a tingle at the base of his skull and railed against it, hoping Khan wasn’t trying to make an early comeback. They reached Engineering and the doors slid open, revealing that the deck was brightly lit with secondary power. “All right, we’re here—Sulu, I’m going to see what Scotty has and I’ll get back to you with further orders. Kirk out.”

Jim moved to step out, pulling the cylinder behind him, but Giotto intervened. “We’ll go first, Captain. Just in case.”

The tingle came again, along with a faint twinge of familiarity. Since he was unable to discern what it was, Jim ignored it. If he hadn’t—if he hadn’t been so goddamn paranoid, if he had realized that the presence in his head was _Spock_ and not Khan, if Khan hadn’t made a point of scrambling his brain on his way out, he might have been able to prevent what happened next.

Immediately after they exited the turbolift, the lights went out, and the following seconds were a blur. Jim groped blindly for Bones’ arm with one hand, the other instinctively reaching for a phaser that wasn’t there. Reynolds and Giotto were smart and didn’t make a sound in reaction, but their weapons whined as they charged to fire.

There was a whisper of movement ahead of them. Jim heard himself yell for everyone to get down, but it was too late. Two blood-red shots came blasting out of the darkness, catching both security officers square in their chests. He was busy getting tackled to the floor by a cursing Bones, but Jim didn’t have to look to know that his men were dead—he had caught a glimpse of the empty, charred spaces where their hearts should’ve been.

As quickly as they had gone out, the lights came back on, revealing a situation that simultaneously made Jim see red and want to vomit. Above him, Bones swore under his breath and shifted subtly, using his shirt to conceal the phaser that was stuck in the back of his waistband.

Scotty was kneeling near the door to the warp chamber, hands behind his head. His left eye was swollen shut and his nose was busted, blood dripping down his lips. Three of Kodos’ bar brawlers turned guardsmen were clustered around him, phasers in hand and looking pissed as hell. Next to him on the floor were scattered tools and a mixture of tubing and plastic that looked suspiciously like a half-completed fake warp core.

Standing on the catwalk that spanned the engineering department—the same bridge that Jim and Scotty had nearly died on when the _Enterprise_ was falling to Earth—was Kodos, one hand curled in a white-knuckled grip around Spock’s broken arm. In the other he held a phaser that was mostly for show; everybody knew that with the power from the transfusion he could kill Spock without blinking. He aimed the weapon in the direction of McCoy and Jim instead.

“Ah, so glad you could join us, Mister Kirk,” Kodos said with a grin, the kind of expression that spurned a dual impression of egotism and insanity. “And I see the good doctor made it as well—as they say, the gang’s all here.”

_I’m sorry_ , Jim said in his mind, speaking to Spock even though his eyes never left Kodos’ face. He and Bones rose slowly to their feet under the targeting eye of Kodos’ phaser. He refused to look at the bodies of Giotto and Reynolds, but he could feel their presence as a lead weight on his shoulders. _I didn’t know it was you, I thought Khan was trying… fuck, Spock, I screwed up._

_It is not entirely your fault, Jim_ , was his first officer’s response, and the knives of pain lingering behind the words made Kirk flinch unconsciously. There was a fuzziness to Spock’s usually cool companionship in his head. _I am afraid that my mental capacity has been somewhat… diminished._

_He drugged you_ , Jim thought, and it wasn’t a question. He felt himself go cold all over, hands clenching into fists. He stared Kodos down, saying aloud, “You son of a bitch.”

“You must come up with some new material, _Jimmy_ ,” Kodos taunted. “You’re starting to sound like a broken record. Although I must admit, the idea of cloning the warp core was quite original—Lieutenant Commander Scott informs me that it was his idea, that you had no idea what was happening. Is this true?”

“I didn’t,” Jim said, and it was half true—he hadn’t known until he was himself again, and that had only happened a minute ago. “How the hell did you get on the ship?”

“Let’s just say your security force isn’t quite what they’re cracked up to be,” Kodos replied with a chuckle. “Although they made quite the ruckus while I was breaking their heads in two. We took an alternate route, and Commander Spock’s clearance took care of the rest.” He twisted his wrist for emphasis and Jim could hear the shattered bones in Spock’s arm grinding together. The Vulcan’s bearing didn’t change, save for a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Your crew is quite loyal—this one here refused to give us the proper codes until I gave him some pharmaceutical motivation. Good thing he’s half human… unless the dose proves to be too much for his system, of course.”

Jim could feel talons digging into the back of his head, a thousand needles stinging his skin. Khan was awake and trying to take over again, hurling wave after wave of darkness at his conscious mind. He tried his damnedest to keep his reaction off his face. _You know this is the worst time for you to be doing this, right? You’ll get us both killed!_

_And_ you _know what he wants you to do_ , Khan countered, his words a growl that rumbled between Jim’s ears. _In essence, this is suicide—there’s no way to know if we’ll survive it! Kirk, if we take him now—_

_No_ , Jim interjected, the word as hard as stone. _Then Spock dies, and Scotty—Bones, too, and probably the rest of the crew. No, no way in hell. This might be suicide, but it gives Marcus and Uhura time to take the_ Decider _off the board, and maybe Sulu can come up with a plan b. I have to buy them time._

_Your nobility knows no bounds, Captain,_ Khan intoned sardonically. He backed off marginally, but Jim didn’t trust him to stay away. _You would be admirable if you weren’t so foolish._

Kodos must have noticed the resolve in Jim’s expression, because he tipped his head toward the chamber door. “By all means, go ahead. I have all day, but your friends may not.” He gestured at McCoy, who had one arm wrapped tightly around his middle. “Has the doctor mentioned the internal bleeding he sustained during his… encounter with my men back in the caves? It must be fairly nasty by now.”

Jim turned to look at Bones but got waved off. “I’m fine, kid,” he said gruffly, one hand coming down on Jim’s shoulder and squeezing so tightly it hurt. “Don’t worry about me—worry about yourself, ‘cause I can’t go in there and do it for you.”

“Same to you,” Jim said, looking his best friend in the eyes and feeling gratified when he got a barely perceptible nod in response. “See you on the other side.”

He bent to retrieve the cylinder, swinging it over his shoulder in a backpack-style carry. When he straightened, Jim could feel Spock’s dark gaze practically boring into his skull, but he couldn’t bring himself to look back. If he had, everything he felt—fear, anger, and more love than he knew what to do with—would’ve been laid out in plain sight, and _that_ would’ve meant certain death for Spock, because Kodos wouldn’t hesitate to break down somebody Jim cared in front of him just for kicks.

“Captain…” Spock said in protest, trying to move from his leaning position against the railing, but neither the drugs nor Kodos was having that. In the refuge of Kirk’s mind, he thought, _you_ will _return to me, Jim._

_’Course I will, Spock_ , Jim replied with more conviction that he actually felt. The affection he poured into the words, though, that was unmistakable. _I could never leave your pointy-eared ass behind—you and Bones would kill each other._ He walked to the warp chamber with his head held high, his dirty command tunic still flashing gold under the lights.

Scotty was on his feet now, a grim expression on his face as he and his guard dogs stood near the release mechanism. His hand hovered over the button. “Captain? You sure about this?”

Jim nodded, a strained smile on his face. “Look at it this way, man—at least I didn’t have to punch you out this time.”

“Aye.” Scotty returned the gesture, revealing a missing front tooth. He hit the button with his palm, and the clear door marked _danger_ and _hazardous_ that had been a fixture in all their nightmares slid open. “Good luck, Jim.”

James Tiberius Kirk stared into the darkened, curving corridor for a split second, and then he charged forward into his own personal hell.


	11. part eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for the usual violence/gore, lots of action and explosions, character death [which will be resolved, promise!], and the saying of a certain word.)
> 
> Shit, guys. I don't even know what to say to you all. You've been so kind and supportive throughout the sporadic on-and-off posting of chapters (over the past TWO YEARS), and this is the longest I've ever left you hanging - I apologize. I fell out of this fandom for a long while, stumbled into a few others, and went through a lot of real-life things, including several botched attempts at starting an original work. Before I could give that another go I knew I had to update this fic, because you're all so lovely and way more patient than I'd be in your shoes. I was also inspired, very sadly so, by the recent death of Leonard Nimoy; I watched the 2009 film on the evening that he passed away and got to work right after it ended. We're very close to the end of this fic, too - I imagine it'll only be two more chapters - and I promise we'll go out with a bang. If you don't hate me (and I wouldn't blame you if you did) feel free to tell me what you think of this chapter. Enjoy!

By the time Jim, Kevin and Tommy reached the rounded dome of the biohazard dump, the black ooze that had once been infected plants was knee-deep and impossible to ford on foot. An arm sticking up through the glassy surface of the sludge floated by on the current, the once white sleeve of its owner’s shirt waving like a flag of surrender. As they watched it continued toward the flaming colony, intent on joining its body-part brethren already scattered in the streets.

The people on top of the dome—six of them, none of whom Jim knew by name—were waving frantically and screaming, but between the ongoing blasts from the landmines and the roaring fires it was impossible to tell what they were saying. None of them appeared to be injured, and the concrete was holding against the ooze, at least for now.

The three boys looked around for something they could use as a platform to attempt a rescue, but the situation was much more grave up close then it had been from a distance. There wasn’t a lot left in the way of debris, and without something to protect their skin from the sludge they’d end up like the owner of that floating arm, which wouldn’t help anyone.

An idea was taking shape in Jim’s mind—it would be a long shot, but even after every hopeless thing he’d seen on Tarsus IV, he refused to accept a no-win scenario. Through his time here he’d found out he was capable of many things, but the ability to give up wasn’t one of them.

Back in the early days of the crop deaths, there were rumors that the plants had been deliberately sabotaged—those who weren’t fans of Starfleet suggested it was done by scientists before the colonists even arrived, and communications had been cut off to see what those who were dependent on the crops would resort to for survival.

Jim wasn’t a big fan of Starfleet, but he doubted that a peacekeeping organization would deliberately encourage genocide—Kodos, however, was another story.

He was both corrupt and cruel enough to manipulate the crops and make sure Starfleet couldn’t be contacted for help in the aftermath. But just because Kodos didn’t want Starfleet interfering in his twisted little experiment didn’t mean he’d be stupid enough to destroy all means of communication—after all, what if something happened to _him_?

Unfortunately, there was only one place in the whole colony Kodos would have deemed secure enough to hide a failsafe.

“I have to go into town,” Jim declared, dropping a half-melted scrap of metal into the dirt.

Tommy’s head snapped around so fast it looked like it hurt.“ _What_? Jim, are you nuts? You’ll get killed!”

“And they’re gonna die if we stand here and do nothing!” Jim exclaimed, gesturing at the group on top of the dome. Crouching down, he grabbed a handful of dirt and rubbed it over his exposed skin in an attempt at camouflage. “Look, I’m just gonna run in real quick and see if there’s anybody alive who can help us out—I’ll be gone fifteen minutes, tops. You guys widen the search, see if you can find anything to make a bridge with a little further out.”

Tommy and Kevin clearly weren’t on board with the plan, but Jim wasn’t worried about that—one of the rules the boys had established early on was that you couldn’t say no if you didn’t have a better idea. They both wished him luck and told him to the careful, and Jim promised he’d see them again, hoping that if he said it with enough conviction it would be true.

Then Jim took off, heading straight for the flames that were dancing toward the night sky.

 

~***~

 

Uhura had piloted her share of small spacecraft, but navigating the Enterprise’s shuttle through the tunnels inside the mountain was proving to be a challenge. Getting in had gone smoothly enough, and then the rocky corridor they’d been in had branched off into several smaller ones, all darker and narrower than the first. The caves were dry and dusty and so far they hadn’t seen another soul.

According to the shuttle’s computers they were only a few kilometers from Kodos’ ship, and she glanced at the chronometer on the dashboard. About fifteen minutes had gone by since they entered the mountain and Kirk and McCoy got back on the _Enterprise_ , no doubt followed by Kodos, his minions, and Spock.

Nyota had seen Spock from a distance as they passed, the man she knew so well and still cared deeply for beaten bloody and forced to his knees, obviously in pain and terrified for the captain’s wellbeing. He’d never let it show in front of his captors, of course, but there was no doubt in her mind that this was tearing him apart.

The comm beeped, and Chekov’s voice came from the speaker, whispered and urgent: “ _Enterprise_ to shuttle, come in!”

“We’re here, Pavel,” Carol said from the copilot’s chair. She kept her tone low too, but if their comm channel was being monitored it wouldn’t matter how quiet they were. “Tell me you haven’t recalculated those coordinates.”

“Negative, Doctor, but we do have another problem. The captain has entered the warp chamber. Kodos is forcing him to extract the core.”

Uhura tightened her grip on the shuttle’s controls, anger and desperation curling in her gut. She had to ask the question, even if she didn’t want to hear the answer. “ _How_ is he forcing him to do that, Chekov?”

A hesitation on the young ensign’s end. “Kodos has Commander Spock, Doctor McCoy and Engineer Scott, Lieutenant. Kirk had no choice.”

“What about the security team?” Carol asked, appearing to be as rattled as Uhura felt. “I thought Sulu sent Giotto and Reynolds down there.”

“I did,” Sulu cut in over the comm, sounding flat, “and then they got holes blasted through their chests.”

“Jesus,” Uhura muttered. “We’re not far now. Has the plan changed?”

Chekov, grimmer than anyone had ever heard him: “Not for you, it hasn’t.”

“But it has for you,” Carol said. “You’ve thought of something else?”

“I thought about the captain,” Sulu responded. “I thought that he’s brave and stubborn and, according to McCoy, majorly touched in the head—not by Khan, but because even after he _died_ saving this ship he doesn’t believe that a no-win scenario exists. I thought that no matter what’s happening to Kirk—even if he thinks he’s finally found a no-win scenario for himself—he won’t let Spock or McCoy or any of us go down with him. I thought that he’d expect me to figure all that out, and then I thought about what he’d expect me to do once I did.”

Comprehension hit Uhura slowly and then all at once. “Evacuate. You have to evacuate the ship—I don’t know how, you only have to reach the surface—”

“—but we have to get out,” Sulu confirmed, “and you need to destroy that ship, stat. _Enterprise_ out.”

The comm filled with static and Uhura hit the accelerator, the shuttle thrumming in response. Her mind was racing, calculating the remaining distance and whether or not they could do the job in one shot; where timing had once been an open window, it was now closing rapidly before them.

“You have this awful look on your face,” Carol said after a moment, blue eyes fixed on Uhura’s profile. “You know what Kirk’s going to do, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Nyota stared into the abyss before her and docking lights came into view, glimmering like targeted salvation. She met Carol’s curious gaze. “He’s going to destroy the _Enterprise_.”

 

~***~

 

Jim Kirk was burning.

Every cell in his body was on fire, every nerve singing as it was overloaded. That massive amount of feedback traveled through skin and muscle and sinew and pierced his brain. No, _their_ brain—because Khan was along for the ride, just like he wanted, but the ride was almost at an end.

 _Only upside of dying again is I get to take you with me_ , Jim thought as his lungs filled with blood. His vision wavered before going black in one eye, the other focused on the smooth floor of the ramp leading to the core, making sure he kept putting one foot in front of the other. _No tribbles to save us this time._

 _It was my blood that saved you, not a spineless ball of fluff that’s only good for procreation._ Khan sounded less than amused, but was that strain in his mental voice? He’d progressed from a whisper in Jim’s ear to a full-fledged megaphone, and it was easier to pick up nuances now. Helped to distract from the literally blinding agony of death by radiation, anyway.

Jim stumbled, shoulder bashing into a curved wall. What remained of his gold command tunic melted away, revealing red and bubbling skin that was sloughing off in sheets, dangerously close to exposing bone. _Shit, Khan—you shouldn’t talk about your mother like that._

 _Even now you wield your attempts at humor like a cudgel—how quaint._ Jim got the feeling Khan would’ve given him one of his famous mind-zaps if either of them had had the spare energy. Khan’s healing factor in Jim’s blood was the only thing keeping them alive, which made doing anything besides moving forward and hauling along the protective cylinder impossible. _According to your memories we’re almost there. I wouldn’t advise looking directly at the core with your working eye._

 _Thanks for the advice_ , Jim remarked dryly, squinting as he rounded the corner. He was greeted by the radiant (ha fucking ha) glow of the warp core, shut down but still powerful enough to make his organs cook. _Any other words of wisdom, asshole?_

 _Two, in fact_ , Khan replied. _Survive this._

“Wonderful,” Jim muttered to himself. His lungs heaved like punctured bellows with each breath. “Note… to self: remind Khan not to go into… motivational speaking.”

That was the last coherent thought he would have for a while.

Jim broke into a coughing fit that left him spewing blood from his mouth and nose. He fell to his knees, the cylinder clunking on the floor next to his leg even as he kept a death grip on the handle. He clutched his head with the other hand, a scream grinding out of his throat at the sheer anguish coursing through his body.

Through his functioning eye Jim looked at puddle of blood on the floor and thought of all the other times he’d seen that redness outside his own body. It’d started that day on the farm when Sam had punched him, progressed when Frank decided smacking him around was fun, and there had been way too many times to count since then.

Every time he’d gotten back up again, too stupid or stubborn to call it quits. Sometimes Jim had had help—Kevin, Tommy, Pike—but for the most part he’d dug his own graves and refused to lie down in ‘em. The one time he didn’t get back up—recently, and in this same place—he’d had people who’d given a damn, people who’d fought, people that had risked themselves and the salvation he’d bought them to pull his ass out of the fryer.

Uhura. Scotty. Chekov. _Bones_. Sulu. Carol.

And Spock.

Spock, who made Jim Kirk feel things he’d thought were forced out of him a long damn time ago, things that had left con-man smiles and recklessness and busted knuckles in their wake. Who could acknowledge when Jim was right—even if he didn’t agree with his methods or his severe lack of logic—but argued when he was wrong. Together they shaped their separate ideas into something better, something whole. Who had been a victim of Jim’s practiced manipulation and mean streak and forgiven him for it.

Spock had seen every ugly thing that lurked in Jim’s head—every dark corner, every monster, every skeleton—and kissed him like he was worth the universe, not thinking him a black hole but instead a supernova, too bright to hold or look at but worth burning for all the same. He believed in Jim, he loved Jim… and Jim was just fucking selfish enough to admit he loved him back.

And because of all of that shit that Jim Kirk had an epiphany: he might’ve had an interesting relationship with death, but he wasn’t going to die _today_.

Unfortunately, Jim’s epiphany wasn’t fast enough for Khan.

The augment ripped back into Jim’s mind with enough force to make him howl, tearing through his consciousness as if it were the thinnest tissue paper. Jim fell forward onto his arms, forehead cracking against the floor. He felt himself getting dragged down into the mire by invisible hands, like he had after the blood transfusion.

 _Sorry, Captain_ , Khan said. He sounded about as sorry as Kodos would’ve in the same situation—which was to say, not at all. _I will not allow you to roll the warp core out the door and then die in here. If you do not submit, I will tear you apart. You have proven yourself a worthy adversary, but I will not go down with your ship again._

For a second, Jim could do nothing at all—not move or breathe or think, his brain shrouded in Khan’s darkness, all control gone. He found himself thinking about his friends and the crew again, how his big revelation was going to amount to nothing…

… and the fingers of his right hand twitched.

The next thing that occurred to Jim wasn’t an epiphany, but something he had felt was true since he became captain of the _Enterprise_ : he was only worth as much as the people around him. If they were gone, he would be nothing—it wouldn’t matter if Khan turned his brain into mush.

Focusing as hard as he could—for the crew, for Spock, for _himself_ —Jim braced against the shadows of Khan’s consciousness and _pushed_.

This time his whole hand twitched.

He did it again and Khan pushed back, drilling into his mind, but Jim was on his feet. Dragging the cylinder like so much dead weight, Jim kept pushing and pushing, ignoring the rippling pain spreading through his head and the vague feeling that he was losing bits and pieces of himself along the way. Khan was screaming a never-ending litany of vitriol and criticism, attempting to using every inch of Jim’s self-doubt against him but only succeeding in making him fight harder.

Suddenly Jim was faced with the garish white-blue brightness of the warp core.

Running on autopilot, Jim hopped up onto its base—felt fabric and skin melting together and burning away—and grabbed its top. He used his whole body to rock the mechanism back and forth until the cables finally snapped and he was able to pull it down.

By the time Jim got the core into the protective cylinder his hands were mostly blood and bone but healed before his working eye, only to start sluicing away again seconds later. He grabbed the handle of the cylinder with disappearing fingers and headed back for the ramp, bouncing off the walls on his way down to the door. He stopped about eight feet before it and peered outside. Through the clear aluminum he could see that everybody was in the same positions they were when he left—Jim had only been gone about five minutes, even if it had seemed like a lifetime to him.

Kodos was still on the catwalk with Spock, fingers visibly digging into his broken arm; Scotty had two of Kodos’ guards positioned behind him, with one of them aiming a phaser at the back of his head; the other one had his aimed at McCoy over Scotty’s shoulder, and Bones was leaning against a wall, an arm clamped around his torso to try and mitigate his internal bleeding while keeping a hand as close as possible to the phaser hidden in his waistband.

 _What’s the brilliant plan, Kirk?_ Khan asked, low and dangerous but somehow further away than he’d ever been. _Walk out there and become the sacrificial lamb? You are_ so _good at that._

“Not exactly,” Jim said, the words barely more than a gargle in his throat. “Hang on tight, dickhead.”

Once Kodos caught sight of him, Scotty was prompted to hit the button that would open the door and all eyes turned to Jim. He caught Bones’ gaze first, holding it for a split second before doing the same with Spock. Jim’s haphazard plan was riding on two things: Sulu coming to the conclusion that he needed to evacuate the crew, and Jim and Spock and McCoy being a trifecta, different in their views and methods but always in synch.

Before the door was open all the way, Jim was off and running. He put every ounce of his Khan-enhanced speed into it before dropping to his knees and falling into a slide, the handle of the cylinder hooked around his elbow.

Several things happened at once.

Bones whipped out his phaser, shot the guy who was aiming at him through the head, and shouted _fall_ to Scotty.

Scotty did exactly what he was told, giving the doctor enough room to take out the man who’d had his weapon trained on the engineer.

Spock used the grip Kodos had on his injured arm to his advantage, turning his body into Kodos’ and throwing his good arm in a lightning-quick arc. It ended with his forearm slamming into Kodos’ unprotected throat, catching the megalomaniac off-guard and causing his balance to falter.

In the middle of all that, he let go of Spock’s arm and raised his phaser in Jim’s direction.

Jim leaned back as far as he could while maintaining the slide, a deadly red phaser blast missing him by centimeters. He saw Spock raise his leg and kick the phaser out of Kodos’ hand. When he was close enough Jim threw his free hand out, catching the railing and springing to his feet, his other arm swinging the cylinder full of warp core at Kodos’ head.

Kodos saw the blow coming and tried to use the telekinesis he’d gained from the blood transfusion. Horror flashed briefly across his gaunt features when the cylinder slowed but didn’t stop, catching him full in the face, pulverizing it into gristle and bone shards.

A vicious yell tore out of Jim’s throat—half him, half Khan—as he threw his weight behind the cylinder, bearing down on it in an attempt to pitch Kodos off the catwalk. Kodos’ fingers clawed at Jim’s burn-mottled chest, but Jim felt movement at his side, and then Spock was driving his good shoulder into Kodos’ gut. Bones rushed over and grabbed one leg and Scotty had the other, and together they heaved Kodos over up and over the railing, the cylinder falling with his flailing limbs into the depths of the _Enterprise_.

 

~***~

 

Sulu and Chekov—along with M’Benga and what remained of the _Enterprise_ ’s security staff—had finished the ship-wide evacuation almost as soon as the transmission with Uhura and Marcus had ended. It had been a difficult process. They couldn’t exit via the cargo bay, because in order to get there they would’ve had to pass through engineering—with the conflict with Kodos in motion that was a no-go. Instead they’d had the ship’s explosives expert blast a hole through the bridge’s viewscreen and then sent their best shooters through first onto the flat disk of the _Enterprise_ ’s forward section.

The snipers picked off Kodos’ stray personnel on Tarsus IV’s surface before the rest of the crew emerged, hustling with rappelling gear to the edge of the disk. In a speedy but orderly fashion everyone made their way down to the ground, carrying pouches and bags that contained everything from emergency supplies to test tubes and botany experiments.

Hikaru was the last to leave. Before he secured himself to the rappelling cable he took a final look at the bridge. This ship that had encompassed the past few years of his life. He knew in his bones that he was right—in making this choice, in predicting what Kirk would do next—but that didn’t stop the pang of regret he felt at leaving her behind.

As Sulu was rappelling down an explosion shook everything, his line swinging wildly in the air due to the shockwaves. He clung on tightly as he waited for them to pass, knowing that they were the result of Carol and Nyota destroying the _Decider_ , and as he steadied his line cheers went up from the crew.

 _One down_ , he thought grimly, _and one to go._

That was when he felt it: a second explosion, barely a purr compared to what had just happened inside the mountain but no less impressive.

It came from inside the _Enterprise_.

 

~***~

 

Ears ringing from the blast and trying to outmaneuver flames and falling debris, Uhura didn’t hear what Carol was shouting as the tiny shuttle zipped its way through the tunnels where Kodos’ ship had been housed.

“ _What_?” she yelled, pushing the small craft as hard as she could as they tried to outrun the impending collapse of the mountain.

“I _said_ there’s been another explosion!” Carol was tapping frantically at the shuttle’s computer, the bluish-white of the screen casting her face in deathly light. “It happened inside the _Enterprise_ —and from the force of the concussive blast there’s only one thing it could’ve been.” She swallowed hard. “The warp core.”

“Damn it, Jim,” Uhura muttered, dodging around a falling boulder and streaking toward the exit. “You _are_ still in there—now I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

 

~***~

 

When he was on Tarsus IV for the first time, Jim had no idea what the hell he was doing. Okay, he had _some_ idea. He was a scared-shitless, barefoot, stick-thin boy, covered in grime and shredded clothes, running flat-out through puddles of plant matter in an attempt to save his friends and possibly his last piece of humanity.

The catch? In order to pull it off, he would have to face the one person who flat-out terrified him; who had manipulated him and controlled him because it was the only way Jim thought he and his friends could survive. And in order to fool that person, Jim would have to allow Kodos to think that he still had that power over him. Nope, not gut-wrenching or disgusting at _all_.

Much later in life he would laugh when Bones told him he had self-esteem issues—no shit, wonder why?

Jim ran, dodging dizzying towers of flame and columns of smoke, tripping on craters in the earth and choking on air that tasted like ashes and dead people. He knew the colony—or what was left of it—like he knew how to kill a lizard or bury a body, and pretty soon he was near the gate in the fence that surrounded the warehouse. There were no guards visible in the flickering shadows, and Jim could see that the gate wasn’t closed all the way. He swallowed the bile that welled up in his throat.

Either somebody had left in a hurry and forgotten to shut the gate behind them…

… or Kodos was in there, waiting for him. Knowing that he would come crawling back eventually, knowing that Jimmy Kirk—no matter how damaged he was or how much he hated himself—would do goddamn fucking anything to help the people he cared about.

Even if it meant turning himself into something he didn’t recognize.

 

~***~

 

As soon as Kodos and the warp core went over the side of catwalk, Scotty, McCoy, Spock and Jim were running for the cargo bay.

“We’re really gonna have to hoof it here, boys!” Scotty shouted as they passed through the door and into the corridor. “Depending on how that thing lands we’ve got less than a minute before she blows!”

“Do you ever have good news?” Bones snapped.

A blast from outside threw the four of them to starboard. Jim reached out a hand that was miraculously free of burns and blisters to keep Spock from whacking his broken arm against the wall. That brief contact burned hotter along Jim’s nerves than the radiation in the warp chamber had, and suddenly he felt more sure-footed since they’d beamed down and gone into that damn warehouse.

Blue eyes met dark ones briefly under blood-red emergency lights, and one look said it all.

They kept running.

“I believe that was Doctor Marcus and Lieutenant Uhura dispatching Kodos’ ship,” Spock commented, sounding as cool as a cucumber and less bitchy than Jim would’ve been if it was his arm that was broken. “If Sulu has managed to evacuate the crew, then our chances of surviving this situation have gone up considerably.”

Bones snorted. “Only you would say that while we were running for our lives!”

Spock’s lips twitched into what Jim could’ve sworn was a smirk out of the corner of his eye. “Always happy to provide a unique perspective, Doctor.”

Humor welled up in Jim’s chest, so buoyant it was almost painful. Khan was a pinprick in the back of his head, small and bleak and insignificant, despite the fact that they were probably about to die. “Stop fighting, kids—I swear I’ll turn this car around.”

A thunderous roar of luminescence and violent smoke was following them now, chewing up and spitting out every piece of the Enterprise it came across, a hungry monster aching to claim more souls for its maw.

Jim could feel it clawing at their backs, and by wordless mutual agreement he grabbed Bones and Spock took Scotty and they hurried even faster. Between Khan’s enhanced genes and Vulcan biology they managed to drag along the doctor and the engineer, keeping one, two steps ahead, almost to the bay door—

They made it, but the outward pressure of the explosion was enough to send them flying out into the air with deadly force.

Jim wrapped himself around Bones in a pretzel-hug, certain parts of their anatomies pressing together in ways that he had time to think they’d vigorously deny later. They somersaulted and twisted in a crazy arc, and he had just enough time to make sure he would land on the bottom, hoped like hell that Bones wouldn’t get hurt worse than he was, and then—

 

~***~

 

—they hit the ground with a sickening _crunch_ , Leonard bouncing off Jim’s chest and getting launched out of his suddenly limp arms with the impact. The doctor rolled through the dirt curled in a protective position, eventually coming to rest several dozen feet from where Jim had wound up.

Vaguely, Leonard was aware that Spock had thrown himself and Scotty to the side when they got blasted through the bay door opening, so although they’d still traveled a considerable distance it was mostly on the ground and less dangerous. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Chekov and Sulu and the rest of the crew recovering from getting knocked on their collective ass, but that wasn’t what he was looking at.

Jim was lying on his back in a slowly settling cloud of dust.

He wasn’t moving. Dread seized Leonard’s whole body, grabbing on tightly and shaking him to his core. Amazing medical technology and low mortality rates be damned, he was a doctor on what seemed to be the most dangerous starship in the known galaxies, he’d recognized the noise he heard when they landed, and he’d seen this a thousand times before. He’d seen _Jim_ like this before.

“No,” the doctor said, voice turned to gravel. One word, one denial, was not enough to capture the horror he felt.

Still, Leonard had to be sure. He dragged himself to his feet, lightheaded from blood loss and half-deaf from the explosion that had almost totally disintegrated the _Enterprise_. A tiny part of Leonard’s brain—the part that wasn’t screaming and rallying and pleading with a God he didn’t believe in anymore—wondered why they weren’t all dead from the radiation in the air. The rest of him moved forward, shuffling until he collapsed on his knees at Jim’s side.

Cornflower-blue eyes stared up at Tarsus IV’s smoke-streaked brownish-orange sky, lips that had no breath passing between them were slightly parted, as if in a last moment of shock or the beginning of a trademark smirk. He was barely wearing anything, a portion of his black regulation pants clinging stubbornly to his legs and waist. Pieces of his tunic and boots were embedded in flash burns that hadn’t had a chance to heal.

Leonard McCoy looked down at Jim Kirk’s body for the second time in his life and knew what true despair was. He felt for a pulse even though he knew he wouldn’t find one, first in the wrist and then the neck, and viscerally wished it was him lying there dead, not this stupid, endearing, brave kid who shone like the goddamn sun.

There was a noise from behind Leonard—an inhuman, wounded sort of thing—and then Spock was there, falling like a puppet whose strings had been cut next to Jim’s corpse.

“Snapped his spinal cord when we hit the ground,” Leonard said, his whole being hollowed out and empty. It sounded to him as if his voice was coming from someone else, at a great distance. “I’d guess he died instantly.”

Spock didn’t appear to hear him speak. He was staring at Jim’s face, at those brilliantly bright eyes gone dim, expressive features stagnant, tanned skin already losing its luster. His expression was impossible for Leonard to read, more alien and indecipherable than it had ever been. There was no way to know what was going through his head.

As Leonard watched, Spock’s hand twitched.

Fingers curled in on themselves before reaching out, wrapping around Jim’s biceps tightly enough that Spock’s knuckles whitened. He bent until his forehead rested on Jim’s still chest, shoulders taut and back hunched.

Leonard had never seen Spock look so small, and it made the wellspring of pain that had replaced his heart ache.

Then, so quietly that Leonard wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been right there, Spock said, “ _T’hy’la_.”

It was a declaration, a statement of fact, and an _almost_ rolled into one word, filled to the brim with love and disbelief and agony. Until he’d gotten saddled with Spock Leonard hadn’t spent much time around Vulcans, but even he wasn’t dense enough to not know what it meant.

What _Jim_ had meant, to Spock.

It was and wasn’t enough, but it was all they were going to get, because much as it tore Leonard apart, he had to lay his hand on Spock’s clenched shoulders and whisper, “He’s gone. Damn it, man, he’s gone.”

Spock started to shake at Leonard’s words, and the universe shook with him.

 

~***~

 

Improbably, at the same time, deep in the burned-out wreckage that was once the _USS Enterprise_ , Kodos opened his eyes.

 

~***~


	12. part twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So I know this update is a long time coming, but at least it didn't take as long as the last one, right? *insert nervous laughter here* Now I'm sure you all remember the Super Bad Thing That Sammy Did in the last chapter (for the record, even I didn't see that coming until I wrote it), and I hope you're satisfied with this one. It's a short update, but I wanted to give you something because you're all super-patient and wonderful, it's the setup for the BIG FINISH, and also because I'm extra happy today - I GOT INTO COLLEGE! *confetti* FYI, we're also probably... oh, a chapter and an epilogue away from the end?
> 
> Enjoy and please tell me what you think!

Jim was right—Kodos was waiting for him in the warehouse, strangely placid among land mine blasts and fire licking at the stars.

The governor-turned-executioner was sitting at the head of that damnable table, the darkness around him broken only by emergency candles, shadows of smoke towers dancing against the walls through the high windows. In front of Kodos were two things: a phaser, and a gray-and-black boxy device that Jim recognized from school as an old-fashioned long distance communicator. It was the simple kind—all that particular model could do was send a distress signal, and they were notoriously unreliable.

For a moment Kodos only stared at Jim, taking in his improvised camouflage and lack of backup with something akin to amusement. “Mister Kirk,” he said as if the world wasn’t burning around them, “you’re a bit earlier than I expected. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Jim didn’t bother asking how Kodos knew he’d come crawling back; they were both too smart and self-aware for that. Instead, he went for sarcasm. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he drawled, “but it’s a little warm out. Thought I’d come visit before everybody started hogging your climate control.”

Kodos chuckled. “Very good. I see you’ve retained your sense of humor despite your predicament. That’s one of the marks of a superior man.”

 “Or a crazy one,” Jim countered, sounding a hell of a lot braver than he felt. “Look, I didn’t come here to chat.”

“Always in such a hurry to get back to your little friends—I take it the change in atmosphere hasn’t changed that?” Kodos smiled. It was a nasty, knowledgeable thing, filled with degradation and filth. “Let’s cut to the chase, then.” He gestured to the objects on the table. “Obviously, you’ve come looking for the communicator. What I doubt will be obvious, however, is that I’m perfectly willing to give it to you. There was no need to skulk in like you intended to steal it.”

Jim raised his eyebrows in a cocky manner. On the inside he felt chilled. “Oh yeah? You’re just going to give me what I want?”

Kodos spread his hands. “When I have I not? In fact, when have I _ever_ denied you anything you desired?”

“You may be right about that,” Jim conceded, tasting bile on his tongue, “but you don’t do it out of the kindness of your heart. You always have a price.” He thought of needles and paralyzing toxins and burning violation. “So what is it this time?”

“It’s not a price so much as an activity—one I think you might enjoy. It should allow you to burn off a little of that pesky rage.” Kodos made a show of picking up the communicator and putting it in the inner pocket of his jacket. “It’s a game of wits and speed, which happens to be right up your alley. This is how it works: I take the communicator as I’ve already done, then I leave the warehouse. I will stay within the boundaries of the colony—let’s say from the farms in the west to the biohazard dump in the east. Meanwhile, you are going to take this phaser—it’s fully charged but can only be utilized on the stun setting—and follow me into the colony after a count of, oh, how does fifty sound?”

Jim’s mind was already whirring along, producing strategies and calculations. “And I’m just supposed to believe that you’ll follow the rules?”

“Have I ever lied to you before?” Kodos asked. He might’ve sounded like a kindly inquiring uncle if it weren’t for the oily underside to the words.

 _That_ was a loaded question… but Jim had to admit that Kodos had never openly deceived him. It didn’t mean he was going to trust him—not by a long shot—but it did establish that the rules Kodos set would be in play. Whether or not there would be any extracurricular activity would remain to be seen.

Keeping his eyes on Kodos the entire time, Jim cautiously reached for the phaser. His fingers touched it and nothing freaky happened, so he picked up the weapon and rapidly debated the merits of shooting Kodos here and now, with no fuss or hide-and-seek. Just as quickly Jim dismissed the idea; he had no doubt that if he made a move now Kodos would have some kind of twisted countermeasure in place.

“Very good,” Kodos said, nodding his approval when Jim opted to hold the phaser down by his side. He walked around the table and headed for the door, flipping the hood of his cloak up over his head. Before he left, he offered one last suggestion over his shoulder: “I’d start counting if I were you… Jimmy.”

With gritted teeth and white knuckles, Jim watched his worst enemy slip outside, into the destructive and raging night.

Then he began to count.

 

~***~

 

In another time—but a in far less substantial place, floating and airy and without pain—Jim found himself standing at a crossroads, dust swirling around his boots and genuine Iowa sunshine beating down against his skin.

At first he was confused. Jim hadn’t been back to Iowa since he’d left for the Academy, had avoided it like it was a deep-space plague. What the hell was he doing here? He glanced down at himself while squinting against harsh rays, saw his bare torso and what was left of his black uniform pants and suddenly understood.

“Oh, come _on_!” Jim exclaimed to no one, flailing his arms in a manner unfitting of both a Starfleet captain and a dead guy. “ _This_ is my life-or-death spot? A goddamn—” he glanced around “— _soybean_ field? In _Iowa_?” He snorted. “That’s just… great. Bones would be laughing his ass off if he could see this.”

Jim froze, realizing that Bones was probably freaking the fuck out because Jim was dead _again_. It didn’t bother Jim all that much, because from what fuzzy imagery he could recall Jim was pretty sure he’d died saving Bones, which was a good way to go out in his book. But Jesus, the crew—and _Spock_ , oh God—

What had been dead silence was penetrated by noise, starting in the distance but closing in fast and breaking Jim out of his thoughts. He cocked his head to one side, staring at the road in front of him and the rapidly approaching dust cloud on the horizon, recognizing the sound after a moment’s contemplation.

An engine. The gasoline-powered kind, hundreds of years old and very distinctive.

Jim would’ve known that roar anywhere.

Out of the glare emerged an achingly familiar cherry-red 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray convertible. Dirt-splattered chrome and sharp lines stopped inches away from Jim, the front bumper a breath away from his knees. Then George Kirk’s ancient car idled in place, purring away like an overzealous cat, light bouncing and pinging off the windshield playfully.

Jim managed an anemic smile. “It’s you,” he murmured, tapping the checkered flags emblazoned on the car’s hood with a fingertip. “Of course it’s you.” He thought briefly of the wind in his sun-bleached hair and the drone of a robotic cop and the thrill of the possibility of falling forever. “Makes sense.”

As if the car understood, its engine revved and the driver’s door popped open.

Figuring this was probably the only way he was going to have a shot at coming back to life—and wasn’t thinking about that just fucking _insane_ —Jim got behind the wheel of the Corvette. Immediately the door slammed shut behind him and the car took off, wheels throwing up miniature tornados of debris as they spun forward.

Jim’s face broke into a grin, and he let out a whoop of joy. He couldn’t help it—despite the circumstances, the speed and the feeling of freedom and the scenery whizzing by in one big blur was something that would never stop bringing him happiness, no matter how old he got or how many times he kicked the bucket. He clamped both hands on the steering wheel and put his boot on the gas pedal, which served to make the speedometer climb higher even though he wasn’t really in control of the vehicle.

The Corvette swung a dizzying right turn at the next crossroads, fishtailing before straightening itself out.

Jim took in where he was with a wide blue-eyed gaze, head snapping around when he caught sight of a particular mile marker. All at once dread coiled like a noose in his stomach, and he knew what his life-or-death choice was going to be.

The car blazed a quick trail to the canyon that Jim had nearly perished in as a child, reckless and wild and maybe wanting to let it all go, just a little bit. Not knowing that he would ever have the option to leave the blandness of Iowa farm fields and backwoods bars behind, that he would make friends and save lives and do what his father had done but _better_.

Young Jim Kirk hadn’t known he would fall in love, believing it to be a fantasy, a lie that adults told themselves to help them sleep at night beside a person who owned enough of their soul to shatter them with one word, one false move. He hadn’t realized that it was so much more than that—you had to give that person your soul, yes, but you also had to trust them not to destroy it.

Jim hadn’t understood trust then, because his had been continually stomped on and broken. He understood trust now; he understood love now. And while he knew he could end everything right here—the pain, the seemingly impossible battle against Kodos—he also knew he couldn’t, because too many people trusted and loved him. Too many people were counting on him to stay.

The Corvette rushed to the edge of the abyss, front wheels flying out into open air with the rest of genuine Detroit steel following closely behind.

Jim could’ve stayed in the driver’s seat. He could’ve followed the car into the dark.

Instead he jumped out and fell toward the light.

 

~***~

 

That light grew brighter and brighter, flaring against Jim’s once-cloudy retinas as his eyes snapped open and he drew a wheezing, gasping breath into his lungs. He was born yet again, once more cheating death when it tried to drag him down into the dirt.

Blinking grit and the fog of lifelessness from his eyes, Jim stared at Spock, whose head had snapped up from its position against Jim’s chest when he took in that impossible first breath.

The Vulcan looked more wrecked than Jim had ever seen him—worse than the medical bay after his mother died during the destruction of his home planet. Worse than he’d looked crouched on the other side of the door to the warp core during what Jim had been sure were the last moments of his life.

Spock was crying openly this time, exquisite features puffy and tinged green from the force of his grief. His lip was split from an earlier blow to the face. His broken arm had been set using a temporary stabilization cast, while his good hand had gone totally still, clenched tightly around Jim’s arm in suspended disbelief.

For a moment, all they did was stare at each other.

Then, in a whisper so quiet it might’ve been nothing more than an exhale, Spock asked, “Jim?”

“Yeah, Spock,” Jim said, throat rasping like it was made of sandpaper. “It’s me. I’m here.” He winced. “Feel like I got run over by an escape pod, but—”

Quick as a viper, Spock leaned forward and captured Jim’s chapped lips in what was easily the most passionate kiss of all of Jim’s recent fucking incarnations. It was clumsy and too dry and not at all gentle and it stole what little oxygen there was in Jim’s body with its intensity. He was acutely aware of everything—Spock’s working hand cupping his jaw hard enough to bruise, the clicking and scraping of teeth, and Spock muttering what sounded an awful lot like _thank you, thank you_ over and over under his breath.

Spock pulled back just as Jim started to see stars, resting their foreheads together and panting harshly. “I thought…” That deep, usually stoic voice cracked under pressure, and Jim brought a hand up to thumb at one pointed ear, fingers burying themselves in soft black hair. “I thought you were gone, Jim. Again.” He swallowed convulsively. “You _were_.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Jim was testing his limbs as he talked, little twitches to see what was what. Miraculously—and wasn’t that a word they’d overused lately—everything appeared to be in working order. He stared into Spock’s eyes, which were as dark as space but twice as beautiful. “For whatever it’s worth, I thought I was gone, too, but then I got to make a choice.” He felt tears rising in his own eyes and blinked rapidly to clear them. “I chose you.”

A smile formed on Spock’s face; a real, honest-to-God grin filled with pride and joy and endless affection. He kissed Jim’s lips one more time, and then raised voice enough to be heard by the others, who had given him the proper amount of space to grieve: “McCoy!”

Bones was next to them in seconds, and as soon as he saw that Jim was alive he collapsed once more to his knees. When the crew witnessed that they all rushed over in disbelief, scraped up and bedraggled and pushed to their limits but alive, so goddamn _alive_.

“Jim? How the hell…” Wonder colored Bones’ voice as he raised a trembling hand, carding it through Jim’s hair before probing at his neck and spine. “You were—your neck was broken, your back was as crooked as a Romulan bail bondsman… you shouldn’t be…”

Jim grinned, wincing as his friend’s fingers grazed spots that were still sensitive. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy. If this whole doctoring thing doesn’t work out, you should really consider falling back on life coaching.”

Bones growled something particularly profane. “Would you just _shut up_ , you fucking idiot?” He pulled Jim off the ground with surprising strength and into a bone-crushing—ha ha—hug, which Jim returned with just as much enthusiasm. “You might be the best friend I’ve ever had, but I reserve the right to kick your ass if you ever pull something like that again, you hear?”

Jim giggled hysterically. “Isn’t that what you said the last time?”

Bones gave him a particularly harsh thump on the shoulder for that one, letting out a wet laugh nonetheless.

            When they parted, Jim was faced with Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, Carol and the rest of the crew. He accepted Spock and Bones’ offered hands and got to his feet with their help, never taking his eyes off the ragtag bunch of loyal misfits—his misfits. They had trusted him to get them through another harrowing ordeal despite the fact that he had a madman occupying his brain at the time, and now here they were, breathless and wide-eyed, staring at him like they were seeing the ghost of their beloved dead grandma.

Chekov was the first to speak. “Keptin?” he said, Russian accent thick with unshed tears. “You are here?”

“Yes I am, Pavel,” Jim said, wrapping his arm around the young ensign’s shoulders and pulling him into a tired embrace. “I’m here, I’m definitely queer, and I’m also pretty fuckin’ naked.”

That got a ripple of laughter—there was barely enough of Jim’s pants left to cover his crotch—and also opened the floodgates.

Nyota was on him first, throwing her arms around Jim’s neck and hugging him hard, echoing Bones’ earlier sentiment about dragging him back from the afterlife to wail on him if he tried to die on them again. Sulu and Carol agreed with her even as they patted his back and kissed his cheek, respectively. Chekov refused to leave his side, and Scotty looked distraught as he gulped down his sobs and watched indignantly as Keenser patted Jim consolingly on the ass.

“Hey now, that’s not an appropriate way to greet the captain after he’s just come back to life!” the engineer exclaimed, swatting the little alien upside the head. “You fuckin’ weirdo, you should be damn glad Jim’s breathin’ again—who else would put up with you?”

Keenser gave Scotty a pointed look before kicking him in the shin and walking over to stand with Uhura.

Even M’Benga was impressed—really, really reluctantly. “I don’t know how the hell you did it, Captain, but congratulations,” he said. “It’s good to have you back. What do you think happened?”

“I’ve got no idea,” Jim admitted, scratching at his jaw. “Maybe Khan’s blood giving one last shove? I don’t feel any super-strength or anything anymore… no more weird tingles or glowing eyes, either.” Privately, he checked around inside his head and was gratified to discover that there were no more shadows, no more darkness that didn’t belong to him. “I think whatever weird voodoo I got from the tribble transfusion is gone.”

“All of it?” Spock inquired, standing close enough to Jim for their arms to touch. “Even the… mental side effects?”

Jim double-checked that he was alone in his mind, for his own sanity as much as Spock’s. “Pretty sure, yeah.”

Despite the good news, Bones was frowning. “Crap like this never pans out for us. We’re missing something.”

“Well I’d say we’re missing a few things, man!” Scotty said. His eyes appeared to be permanently bugged out of his head and like everyone else he was covered in soot and debris from the destruction of the _Enterprise_. “We’ve got no ship, no way to contact Starfleet—”

“The shuttle is intact,” Uhura cut in, pointing to where the vehicle sat near a large outcropping of boulders, “but its communications system isn’t strong enough to beam a distress signal to an inhabited planet—we’re too far away.”

“Can you modify it?” Jim asked.

She made a see-sawing gesture with one hand. “Maybe. I would need tools, though, and something to boost the signal with… preferably that would be a system from another Starfleet-made ship.”

“We can’t send anybody back into the _Enterprise_ to scavenge for parts—if the warp core caused that explosion, the levels of radiation in that wreckage are beyond toxic, Captain,” Carol pointed out. Looking in the direction of the remains of the farming colony, her jaw clenched—no doubt recalling her ordeal on Cygnia Minor. “What about the town? Is there anything there that we could use?”

Bones looked at Nyota. “How’d we leave Kodos’ setup on top of the biohazard dump?”

Her eyes lit up. “Well enough that there might be something useful there. We need to conserve the shuttle’s power, though… a few of us will have to walk to the dome and back with whatever we find. If I can splice together the wiring it could work well enough to send a distress signal.”

“Not a bad idea,” Jim agreed. “Take Scotty and whoever else you want from communications with you, Nyota.” Addressing the crew at large, he continued, “The rest of us are going to go into the colony—there are some structures there that we can use as shelter in case there’s a storm. It’s imperative that we get as far away from the _Enterprise_ and the residual radiation as we can. Once we get to town I’ll want a full inventory of the supplies we have.” He looked at M’Benga. “What’s the injury situation?”

“With the exception of Giotto and Reynolds—and yourself, until a moment ago, Captain—we have no casualties,” M’Benga informed him. “Some crewmembers retained minor injuries. Cuts and scrapes, those sorts of things.”

“Okay, awesome. If there’s anyone who can’t walk or is having trouble, we’ll put them in the shuttle. Mr. Sulu can pilot her to the colony on low power.” Jim glanced around at the dirty faces of the crew. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, Jim,” Spock replied, answering for everyone. “You never do.”

“Careful, now,” Bones said dryly, “if his ego gets any bigger he won’t be able to fit it on the shuttle, _which he is going to ride in_ , along with you and me and my broken goddamn ribs.”

Jim thought about arguing—about _him_ riding on the shuttle, anyway—then paused, actually engaging his brain. “I’m not gonna win this one, am I?”

The look on McCoy’s face said it all.

 

~***~

 

It took about twenty minutes for the shuttle carrying the injured crewmembers and those walking on foot to reach the crumbled remains of the Tarsus IV colony, and in that time dark, threatening clouds had begun to gather on the horizon. They promised a storm later on in the evening, and judging from the shivers of lightning passing between the clouds and the ever-increasing wind, a bad one.

Jim watched the oncoming weather boil and churn from the high windows of the warehouse where Kodos had kidnapped him and Spock so he could lay out his evil plan and show them the _Destroyer_. It seemed like it’d happened days ago but in reality only a few hours had passed—dying tended to skew your sense of time, Jim had learned.

Now he was sitting on the edge a of a tall stack of dilithium crates, swinging his legs a little as he wanted for M’Benga to finish setting Spock’s broken arm. A young command ensign had approached him a while ago and offered him a spare gold tunic to wear, and while Jim was pulling that on a science officer had come along, giving him an extra pair of uniform pants. He’d kept his boots on, despite the fact that the soles were melted almost beyond recognition because shoes were the most important part of any outfit and he knew Bones would probably kill him (again) if he got something stuck in his foot.

Every able-bodied member of the crew was doing something, from organizing supplies to towing the shuttle into the warehouse to pushing around crates to make room for a sleeping area. Jim had tried more than once to get involved, but each time he was told they had it under control or—very pointedly but extremely politely by Chekov—that they didn’t need his help. He could appreciate the protectiveness considering the circumstances, but Jim had the attention span of a fruit fly when he wasn’t doing something and he was _bored_.

Plus, sitting around doing nothing meant he had time to think, and thinking about anything right now—Kodos, Khan, the _Enterprise_ , his second foray to death’s door—had the potential to leave him in the corner sucking his thumb. If it was all the same to everyone else he’d rather avoid that, please and thank you.

Distraction finally arrived in the form of Spock, who approached Jim’s tower of crates with a digital cast on his arm. Jim clambered down to meet him—the energy beams in a digital cast didn’t restrict movement like the old-fashioned plaster kind, but he knew you weren’t supposed to exert the limb if you didn’t have to.

“Hey,” Jim said, feeling awkward for a reason he couldn’t quite place—oh, wait, Spock nearly died, with no tribbles or Khan-blood around to bring him back. _That_ was it. “So what’s the prognosis?”

“I have a spiral fracture that originates in my wrist and continues to my elbow, and some internal bleeding that Doctor M’Benga was able to heal with a modified regenerator,” Spock reported, sounding a little worn at the edges but otherwise reassuringly normal. Before Jim could ask, he added, “Which the good doctor is now using on McCoy to tend to his injuries.”

“Good. That’s… good.” Jim wished fervently that he knew what the hell to do with his hands. “Um. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Spock’s eyes were hard to read in the dim lighting of the warehouse. “How are _you_ , Jim?”

For a split second, Jim considered lying. The words sat on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out as easily as they always did: _I’m fine, Spock, why wouldn’t I be?_ Then he thought about how Spock’s face would look when he realized Jim was lying—because other than that time on the bridge after his mother died, Jim had never been able to fool Spock into thinking he was an unfeeling bastard—and reconsidered.

“Shitty. I’m really, truly, amazingly shitty, Spock.” Jim sat down on the concrete floor and leaned his back against a crate, waiting for Spock to do the same next to him before continuing, “I know I shouldn’t be. We beat Kodos, I came back from the dead— _again_ —the crew is safe and working on a way to get out of here… but…”

“But all of those things came with a price,” Spock interjected quietly. He hesitated for a split second before placing his good hand over Jim’s wrist, thumb resting against the back of his hand.

Jim nodded, letting his head thump against the side of the crate. “Exactly. Kodos is gone, but Giotto and Reynolds are dead— _I’m_ here, and they’re still dead. The crew’s safe, but we lost the ship, and if Uhura’s plan doesn’t work we’ll be stranded here until Admiral Komack decides to miss us, since he’s the last outsider we had any contact with.”

Spock’s lips twitched in amusement. “And knowing how the Admiral feels about us, it is quite possible that will not be for some time.” He paused, and in truly Spocky fashion, chose his next words carefully. “I understand that you feel a sense of responsibility about the deaths of Giotto and Reynolds… but Jim, they felt a sense of responsibility toward you, too.”

“Yeah, because I’m—I was—their captain.”

“No,” Spock said, fingers tightening around Jim’s wrist. “You were their friend. They would have done anything for you; they were comfortable with the idea of sacrificing their lives, because you never treated them as subordinates but as people. You never treat anyone with less than the respect that they deserve, and that is one of many reasons why they’re so loyal.”

Jim swallowed against the wellspring of appreciation and guilt and other nameless emotions that was threatening to choke him. He opened his mouth to try and form a response, but never got the chance.

“Captain,” Sulu called from near the doors to the warehouse. He was looking outside and sounded vaguely alarmed. “You need to come and see this.”

Jim and Spock exchanged their usual _what the hell_ glance and got off their asses, picking their way through scattered crewmembers and around the shuttle to get to the front of the building. Outside, the sky grew progressively darker and the first warning boom of thunder sounded in the distance.

When they reached Sulu, Jim said, “Hikaru, I told you, the storms here look pretty bad, but as long as it doesn’t rain too much—”

As a navigator, Sulu had one of the best sets of eyes in the _Enterprise_ crew, second only to Spock or Jim when he was hopped on Khan’s blood. He shook his head, pointing to something in the distance just as the first drops of water began to fall from the sky. “I’m not talking about the storm— _look_.”

Jim squinted, following the line of Sulu’s index finger. Beside him, Spock took in a sharp breath. “I don’t—”

The words died in his throat as he finally saw it: Kodos the Executioner’s distinctive silhouette, back to haunt them once more.

 

~***~

 

**Author's Note:**

> (This fic is on a semi-permanent hiatus. Sorry!)


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